


Five Months, Month I, Hinata Version

by Cautiously_Dauntless



Series: Five Months, Hinata Version [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Abuse, Accidental Death, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Bullying, Car Accidents, Child Abuse, Crying, Divorce, Getting Back Together, Healing, I Tried, I Will Go Down With This Ship, If you only read one work by me, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Canon Relationship, Sorry Not Sorry, What Have I Done, You might cry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-02 16:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 33,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8675398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cautiously_Dauntless/pseuds/Cautiously_Dauntless
Summary: *edited version* In Hinata's third year at Karasuno High School, his parents get divorced. When his mother becomes an alcoholic Hinata is forced to take care of her by night and study by day, causes him to give up his dreams about volleyball. On the other hand, Kageyama has developed a crush on Hinata and worries about his wellbeing.POV from Hinata





	1. Month I, Scene I

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there people!
> 
> This is my second fic ever (I didn't put up the first because I didn't finish it), and first to be put on AO3. I hope you like it!
> 
> Hinata and Kageyama are third years, just to clarify before ch. 3 and if you didn't read the summary carefully.
> 
> SCENES I AND II ARE FOR THE SAKE OF PROLOGUE. They are more to establish Hinata's home atmosphere so that the rest of the fic isn't so confusing. If you wish to skip them that's fine, but it's not my fault if you get confused at Scene III.

My apartment is silent when I walk in, but it’s undoubtedly the most suspenseful silence I’ve ever felt. I peer around the front as I shed my shoes, careful not to call out for my father. Dad… he’s gone. I try not to think about it, but it’s hard not to when your entire life has been changed by it. 

When I close the door and lock it behind me I get no verbal response but a sob comes from the other room. Instantly I dump my schoolbag and practice bag down on the floor next to my shoes.

I hurry over. 

Natsu stands in the doorway of her room, watching our mother cry. She has a red mark on her face and her own eyes glisten with tears, hinting at what happened. A stab of pity and sorrow almost stops my heart, and I stride across the room to her. 

“Natsu?” she cowers as I approach, thinking I’m her mother as tears blur her vision, but comes sniffling into my arms when she realizes it’s only me. “Natsu, did she hit you again?”

I already know the answer as I close the door behind me.

“I think- she- hates me,” she says, her own tears preventing her from speaking fluently. “It- happened yes… yesterday t-too, and on Sunday, and-”

“She doesn’t hate you, Natsu,” I sit down next to her, the soft yellow glow of her nightlight lighting up half of our faces. I take her trembling figure in my arms. “It’s Dad that she hates, not you. Not me. Just Dad.”

_I miss him._

“But if… if she hates Dad, then why- why is she hitting us?” her tears come out, and I don’t try to make them stop because I know that they won’t. I just hold her warmth closer. “Does she think we’re Dad? 

I sigh, and her continuous sobs come out from the other room.

“She doesn’t,” guilt weighs my shoulders as we wait together. “She’s angry and needs to put it somewhere.”

“Why can’t she put it in the Magical World- you know, where all the fairies and demons live and stuff?” her innocence is infectious but I don’t fall to it just yet. “You know-”

“Yeah, I know. It’s because she can’t go there,” I hesitate for a long moment before adding a last thing. “She’s not as magical as you. When Dad left, her ability to reach that world ceased. She can only stay in this world.”

I hate having to make up worlds like this to her, to lie about what people can and can’t do in a non existent world. Shame fills me. But if Natsu understands it, then by all means I will do it.

“But why us? Why not-”

“The walls, the sky, the dirt, the rain?” I finish with her, accustomed to this conversation. Then I speak alone, coming up with a new reason like I do every few days. “Because those don’t have a soul. They can’t feel like we can. Humans have a habit of only attacking things that have a soul.” 

At this she looks heartbroken. “Then we can change it!” she says defiantly, raising her head. “We’ll make it so that-”

“ _No_ ,” I close my eyes, face hardening. “You can’t change that." 

“Why not?”

“Because that’s how Humans were created.”

“Then we make God change it!”

This is the billionth time I have to say this, and even though it’s probably not true I have to make sure Natsu doesn’t do any rash things and hurt herself. “There are things that even God can’t change.”

“Then we find another God,” she spreads her hands as if it’s a plan to save the universe.

I’m about to retort when my mother’s voice rips through the air. 

“ _Shoooooyyyooooo!!!!”_


	2. Month I, Scene II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata's mom is drunk like every other night and a new side of her is shown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you stuck through the first chapter thank you. Here's the second scene.
> 
> I honestly am not posting whole months at a time because a. I'm a slow writer and b. I don't want crazy readers who miss sleep because they're like 'hey i should finish this chapter before i sleep' and stay up to an unreasonable hour.
> 
> Not like that's going to stop you. But I speak from experience.

I take a breath, bracing myself and forcing myself to be calm as I open the door once again. Natsu stays behind, already having her share of pain. I can feel her nervous gaze linger on me but finally her hand lets go of mine, signaling that I’m going to be ok. When I feel her warmth fade, I close the door behind me.

“Mom,” I awkwardly stand across the table from her drunken self, the wood littered with bottles upon bottles which most are empty, some full, and some in between. In her hand she holds a rather full glass of champagne in a red wine glass, swinging it around with some of the contents almost spilling onto her wrist.

“Call me Mother for the gazillionth time, dammit,” her voice seethes and my hands twist together under the table ledge, thankfully out of her sight. She waits for me to correct myself, and I do.

“Mother,” I gulp, my mouth getting dry. “I’m sorry.”

She giggles and hiccups. “Good, Shoyo, good. Now sit.”

The scrape of chair legs is horrid in the silence.

We just sit for a bit, and an itchy sensation is taking me over. I need to do something. This doesn’t have to be like this, but it’s simultaneously the only way that we can go.

“I love you, Mother,” I reach across the table and lay my right hand on top of her free hand in a halfhearted attempt to console her. Before I felt love, but now it’s a confusing mix of love and pity. “I’m sorry about Dad.”

She immediately becomes solemn, even through her high. “You know, I might hate your father, but I never once felt anything but love for you and Natsu.”

I’m not sure if she’s being honest about that.

“C’mon, Shoyo, have a drink,” her brief spell of sympathy is gone, replaced by the previous drunkenness. “ _ Damn _ does this wine taste good.”

She shakes the glass of champagne in her hand to show what she’s talking about. She slides her hand back out from beneath mine, tilting back onto the back two legs of her chair.

“First, I’m a minor,” I sigh, still twisting my fingers in my lap. “Second, you’re drinking champagne, not wine. Third… I think you’ve drank enough for tonight.”

That last one… it kinda became my job ever since Dad left. 

Mom became so out of it, drinking every night. Now that it’s been a while, she became a raging alcoholic, and every night I am the one to tell her that enough is enough.

Natsu has been trying recently, but evidently Mom only listens to me… and it takes her a while. Painfully so.

“Ah, riiiiiiight,” She shoots forwards and seizes me by the collar of my shirt. Swiftly I’m pulled forwards my stomach scraping on the edge of the table. Bottles are knocked this way and that and a few of them falling and shattering on the floor. 

“Drink.”

Her breath reeks of alcohol.

I don’t struggle, even when the table pushes at some bruises that I’ve gotten.

Being in the state that she is, my mother is surprisingly strong, but I’ve gotten used to it. I tense, waiting for the alcohol.

Instead she strikes me across the face and pain erupts on my left cheek. Cowering, I clutch at 1it, reflexive pain tears forming. “I’m sorry,” I mumble quickly.

“You’re only going to trust me, and nothing else, you hear?” Quiet and menacing, like she always is no matter sober or drunk. “Huh?”

“Yeah,” I say, and she throws my hand off my face and strikes it again.

“What was that?!”

“Yes, Mother,” I say louder and clearer. “I trust you.”

“Good, Shoyo,” she laughs lightheartedly, and I submit to her as she pours the contents of the glass into my mouth.

I cringe at the bitterness of it, but don’t dare cough.

“Now that was good, wasn’t it?” She drops me onto the table, and the wood of the table slams into my cheekbone with a thud. “Talk to me Shoyo.”

“It was good, Mother,” I struggle to sit up on the surface of the table, and the last thing I see is her reaching for one of the half-full bottles. 

By the time I awaken, Mom will probably be asleep. 

Hopefully I can just crawl into bed and let my grief carry me away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it wasn't clear in Scene I and Scene II, I should clarify why there's 'Mom' and 'Mother' together. This wasn't a mistake. Hinata and his sister used to refer to their mother rather informally, but when the divorce happened Hinata's mother became stricter and wanted a more formal approach.   
> The next Scene is more of an actual plot rather than prologue, so thanks for sticking with me!  
> And poor Hinata.


	3. Month I, Scene III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How is the divorce affecting Hinata and his volleyball? Well, let's find out!  
> I'm sorry, I lied, this Scene is actually more of a prologue as well, but the next scenes depend on it anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this is a really big jump from the last couple scenes, I'm sorry-!  
> I have only watched seasons 1 and 2 of the anime and haven't read the manga, so if this deviates from the actual plot consider it an AU fic. This includes new characters like Kimura as well.
> 
> Bold is supposed to be handwriting.

My third year of high school is slipping away through my fingers, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

Only five months until Kageyama leaves me.

For Japan’s National Volleyball Team.

And I’m going to university, because after my parents got divorced I knew I actually couldn’t spend my life on volleyball.

Well, it's not like I spent my whole life playing volleyball and had a destiny in the sport. If I really did, that would be… what’s the word… ridiculous? Wrong? Um, hold on…. Warped! That’s the word. Warped.

Anyway, I had only _really_ started playing volleyball around two and a half years ago, and even then I didn’t know how to to a normal quick attack.

And you can’t skip over the fact that I suck compared to the other third years, and some of the first years too. Even though I became vice captain of the team this year… Kageyama, the captain (I know, right? How did that happen?) and Tsukishima are just _better_. Their defense is airtight now, and Kageyama’s serves are arguably on the same level as Oikawa’s were two years ago. Kageyama’s setting is spot-on, and Tsukishima makes a pretty good wing spiker and has become an even more skilled middle blocker… they are both everything that I will never reach no matter how hard I try.

Two weeks ago, I’ve actually left the volleyball club and handed over my position as vice captain to an extremely mature second year that Kageyama seems to trust well. Leaving… it wasn’t something all that smooth. It took a lot of teeth grinding, squirming, losing sleep in order to finally make the decision.

When I stepped down, it felt like something kind of snapped in my chest, but I decided to ignore it. Kind of like a sudden fall you lose footing when running. One second, you’re fine, and the next second, you’re face-flat on the ground, all the breath knocked out of you. And say I got a really big scrape on my knee, but got up and kept running. That’s what it’s like, the scrape is hurting me but I’m not tending to it because it won’t kill me just yet.

Anyway, back to the club. See, it would be problematic if Tsukishima became vice captain… imagine the arguing between Kageyama and him. They’ve gotten better over the years, but still argue a lot. Yamaguchi almost didn’t come back this year, we had to get Tsukishima to make him sign up. He’s quiet, so Kageyama doesn’t really notice him and they rarely talk one on one… and therefore they don’t seem like a good pair.

The only choice was to move on to the second years, and Kimura-kun, the guy I gave the position to, seemed all up for the job. I told him that I had to focus on school, as a third year preparing for college entrance exams rather than telling him , and he bought into that pretty well. He took the position, and relayed the message to Kageyama.

We- as in Kimura-kun nor Kageyama- haven’t really talked since then. Just… silence, is really the only thing I can think of.

I still vaguely remember the promise Kageyama made to me all those years ago, that we would stay on the court together for ten, twenty, thirty years more. Ah, the lies we well when we’re young.

And the pain they give us when we get old.

I cast a sidelong glance at Kageyama, who sits beside me two columns away in the classroom. He as per usual is intently listening… he told me it was just ‘on the chance’ that universities with good volleyball teams wouldn’t accept him because of his grades, but I know that he’s also preparing to the chance that the gets injured or is kicked out of volleyball and will never be able to play.

Perhaps he’s learning from me. Well, I don’t know, so how could I ever…?

I flinch when I realize that he’s staring at me as well, and I quickly spin back around to the board. Shocked at how much information has appeared on the blackboard in the past two minutes, I hurriedly scribble down everything I see, only checking to make sure I can understand afterwards. Glancing up and down still, I can still feel Kageyama’s unwavering gaze on me.

_Please don’t stare at me like that._

It’s not not an accusing stare, don’t get me wrong- it’s just watchful. Waiting, almost, trying to see if I’m gonna do something. I’m not sure how to describe it… harassing me? I feel like a pair of hands are closing around my neck and slowly closing in, suffocating me. I swallow and force myself to pretend to keep writing so I don’t have to look back at him… Purely so I won’t have to look directly at his face. I can feel my back going rigid, shoulders tensing, and my heart jumps up to my throat as fear electrocutes me.

This time, it’s not my lack of vocabulary that’s stopping me from telling you what I’m feeling. It’s just that there _isn’t_ a word for it in the first place. It’s like a ‘gwah-!’ kind of feeling, like that moment right after someone sneaks up behind you but prolonged until you feel like you’re gonna die.

Thankfully, just before I start to go insane, he looks away. Slowly, I let out a sigh under my breath, griping about the length of the stare on the inside. After writing something down with shaking hands, I let myself slouch into the back of my chair and close my eyes.

Almost immediately after there’s a scuffling sound in front of me, and my eyes flick open to see a scrap of paper being released by the person to my right. I don’t even have to think in order to know that Kageyama’s the one who sent it to me.

Leaning forwards, I tentatively pick up the note, pretending to write something down before I unfold it.

**Lunch is next, isn’t it? Come find me on the steps behind the gym. I want to talk to you, because it seems like you’re worried about something. Is that ok?**

I read the note again, just to make sure I read it right. We’ve passed notes before, and we’ve eaten lunch before, and he’s asked if I wanted to talk and has talked to me when I’ve been down for the count… but never has he ever gave me anything like this… never has he ever said ‘I want to talk to you _because_ you look worried’. Moreover, he’s always kinda been like ‘if you’re worried about something, you can talk to me’ and I’ve almost done so, but this is more enforced and it takes me aback.

I sneak a glance over at him, but he’s busy writing something down. Picking up my own pencil, I write down a new definition in my notes and then reply to Kageyama’s message.

**Sure, I’ll be there.**

I sit for a second, feeling like I should add something else to the note, but come up with nothing but ‘ **thanks for keeping an eye out for me, but I don’t feel all that worried. I'll still talk to you though.’**

Steadily I wait, folding the paper again, and the moment comes when the teacher turns around again to write something new on the board. Quickly leaning over, I pass the note back to the boy on my right. I watch it reach Kageyama, but turn away before watching him read it, trying to keep my thoughts off of how he would feel upon seeing my words. Looking to the board, I write the formula at the bottom of my notebook page before turning it. Now, I feel a hard stare in my direction, and my reflexes cause me to shiver.

The teacher warbles on about the significance of polynomials, but the paper doesn’t come back as minutes drag by. I suppose that Kageyama either couldn’t find anything to say or felt like the conversation was good to end there, and that’s alright with me. His gaze repeatedly lingers on me, and it’s uncomfortable. I can’t help but feel like cornered prey even though I should be calmed by his worrying.

Soon enough the bell chimes its usual four-note tune and we’re off, minnows in a sea of hallways with the sound of chattering smattered here and there. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hinata better find Kags real fast cuz he seems aaaaaangry.....


	4. Month I, Scene IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Hinata gets sexually harassed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter may seem miscellaneous and I know it seems kind of weird that Hinata is getting abused by his mother AND getting bullied. BUT, this pair is going to have a bigger role as the series plays out.

Taking a deep breath, I tighten my grip on my bento box and shove my phone deeper into my pocket. I go outside and glance around looking for nothing in particular, only then heading over to the gym.

But when I get around the corner I’m stopped by a pair of tall, smart-looking second-years. Kageyama is nowhere to be seen.

Ah. Them.

They’ve been bullying me ever since they got here, not believing me when I told them I was a third year this year and a second year last year. I haven’t told anyone about it, not even Kageyama, and I don’t think he’s found out by other means.

I can’t be weak.

“Oh, look what we have here,” one of them, a boy with dead-looking eyes leers down at me from his towering height.

I take a step back, but they advance. Slowly, slowly, like a shark hovering under a school of fish. I brace for them to charge, and retreat by half a meter again. My feet shuffle on the pavement, and the taste in my mouth is bitter.

That’s partly from the alcohol still left in my mouth after last night, but most of it is from self-foreboding.

“Chibi-chan, wasn’t it?” the other draws on my fear, taking another step in my direction. “Chibi-chan who claims to be older than us, but looks like a _grade schooler._ ”

I shuffle back, because _boy_ are those faces scary. And then I can’t stop, and I keep going until I back myself into the wall. The brick presses into my back, and I hold out a hand in order to keep my balance.

“Show us you’re mature, _Chibi,_ ” the second one follows me, cornering me. “Show us that you’re not a grade schooler.”

There’s a flash of movement and only after I’ve moved do I know what they tried to do. I duck a punch to the head and his fist slams into the brick behind me. I feel blood drip down onto my face, and when his hand comes away I see that flaps of skin have become half torn away, waving like the Chinese flag as more blood seeps out.

He makes a grab for my shirt. I dodge only to lean right into a punch to my gut, which still hurts from being dragged across the edge of the table last night. My vocal chords vibrate in protest and I hear a groan escape me.

Instantly the wind is knocked out of my lungs. He follows through with a sucker punch as I sink down and land in the dirt. Coughing and holding my stomach I look up to see the silhouette of the first guy- who yanks me up by the hair.

_Where’s Kageyama? Wasn’t he supposed to be here?_

“Let go!” I scratch at his wrist, but the pain in my head is hard to ignore and takes the little strength I have. “I have to go som-”

I feel a throaty gasp escape from my throat as he grabs my crotch, rubbing at me, as he drops my hair to pin my hands above my head.

The realization hits me too late.

“No-!” I struggle and toss and turn, but he’s too powerful and I can’t escape. I pull my arms down with what little strength I can muster, almost hitting myself in the head in a last attempt to escape. Needless to say, it doesn’t work, and I begin to hyperventilate. “Stop! This isn’t-” blush begins to flare in my cheeks, my heart beginning to pound in my chest as he digs his thumb in. “It’s not… right!”

“Really, now?” he whispers into my ear and nibbles on my earlobe. His hand undoes the button and zipper on my pants.

"Don't-" I pant to no avail.

He slides his bloodied hand down into my underpants, seizing my member and I explode.

“ _Get away from me_!” my quivering voice echoes on the sides of the buildings and reverberates on the inside of my skull. The ground is hard and the wind cold and unforgiving. I barely feel relief as he releases me and retreats a step, not before kicking me in the sternum.

My manhood is starting to throb and my breathing is heavy. Everything else is numb.

I use the last drops of my energy to get up and run, to just plain _run_.

I wobble over to the bathroom, my vision swimming. My body feels weird. I feel drunk.

Like my mother.

No. This can’t be happening. It feels weird, it doesn’t feel right.

I lock the door, standing alone in the bathroom, blushing and a terrible, terrible mess. I’m breathing hard, and the strangling feeling is coming back, and my head feels fuzzy, and my legs are weak, and I feel nausea, and I feel hot, and I feel unsteady, and I feel uneasy, and I feel robbed, and suddenly I’m-

_Bam._

My face slams into the metal of the stalls and I’m jerked back down to earth, sliding with weak knees onto the ground. I turn quickly and throw up into the toilet, clutching at my stomach.

_Why? I’m worthless, I know. Do you have to rub it in?_

Vision swimming, I cough meekly and take some toilet paper to wipe my mouth. My heart is pumping ferociously, with no sign of stopping. My hands clutch at my chest but fail to calm me down. It’s hot, hot and suffocating. And too quiet. The only sound is me. And my heartbeat.

And I refuse to masturbate in the school bathroom.

_C’mon, go down, go down, you are NOT hard right now._

I throw up again.

My body refuses to react to my words, wherein frustration consumes me. All can do is take deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep, slow, calming breaths. The air comes in, and goes out. Slowly, slowly…

_Calm down…_

_Be calm…_

_Calm……_

Tears begin to leak out of my eyes, and I hastily wipe them away. I’m not crying. I’m not weak.

 _But I_ am _weak._

  
Something inside me breaks when I realize it’s not wrong, but something else tells me that it’s already been broken for some time now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why am I doing this to poor Hinata?!
> 
> and shoutout to Trollshima for leaving first kudos!


	5. Month I, Scene V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata finally meets Kageyama. What could he possibly want...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is longer than the previous, and I enjoyed writing it.   
> Finally some Kagehina in this Kagehina fic!

Lunch break is around one third over by the time I can stand up properly, and I carefully emerge from the bathroom. Scanning my surroundings, I don’t see Kageyama or the two boys so I hurriedly break out of the building. Just before I go to the gym I double back to grab my lunch box (smushed under the shoe of one of the bullies, as I can tell by the footprint) and run over to the gym.

“Kageyama-kun, sorry I’m late!” I call out glancing around for him as I fighting the heaviness in my heart, and said boy looks up from his lunch. “I was-”

“You’re hurt!” Kageyama exclaims as I draw closer. With a perplexed look on his face he casts aside his own meal and lunges into my personal space. In a heartbeat I step back and thankfully he doesn’t close in, but I’m still close enough to be able to smell him. It’s barely a moment before he whisks the bento out of my hands, placing it on the sidewalk while clamping a hand on my shoulder- all before I can even blink.

“Hur-?”

He pulls up my shirt and I flinch. I whack his hand away from the hem of the shirt, but he’s seen what he wanted to see.

“Look at yourself,” The taller boy clicks his tongue. “What’s this?” I yelp when he presses on a day old bruise on my neck. “And that? And that?” He runs a hand over the bruises formed by the bully hitting my stomach, chest, and chin earlier, and I tense as a whine escapes my clenched teeth. “… And that, too! Here, here, and here-” he attacks bruises that I didn’t even know that I had, sore spots that are strained. “Where are all these from? You crazy _idiot_!”

“I’m fine, I promise,” I gently reach up and push his head to the side, resisting the urge to cower. “You don’t have to-”

“Worry? You’re impossibly late, you _quit_ the volleyball club without warning, you _stop_ talking to me, you have bruise marks getter higher and higher in number by the _day_ , and you expect me not to _worry_?” Kageyama splutters and shifts his weight from foot to foot, clearly unsure with how to handle this situation.

Freezing in place, I take my hand from his face.

I’ve never seen him this flustered before, fidgeting before me like this. I never knew he worried that much.

He shakes his head and continues with a rising voice, still gripping my other shoulder in his long-fingered hand. “Don’t worry, my _ass_ ! If I can’t worry about you, then who am I supposed to worry about? Who else is supposed to worry about _you_ ?! The whole team hates me now because they think I've booted you off the team. It pisses me off, especially when I _never_ would have done that! Why?! What the fuck even happened?!”

“I need to concentrate on my studies,” I mumble as I hang my head. “And the volleyball team doesn’t…”

Silence ensues as I can’t find something to say. My hand, its small being, moves on its own and catches onto Kageyama’s shoulder while I seek out support. He doesn’t move, but his muscles tense up. “The team doesn’t what…?”

I don’t look up. Can he hear the shakiness of my voice? What I’m about to say makes it feel like I’m officially giving up, and I don’t want to do it because it would hurt. “They don’t…”

He waits for me.

“They don’t… it doesn’t need me…” I squeeze my eyes shut, because saying this out loud is a confirmation, a seal, an act of making this statement true and it makes me want to cry.

Kageyama is a little late to respond.

“Nonsense,” He gently butts his forehead on mine as if to punch me without hurting me. “Of course we need you. Last year Ennoshita, the captain _himself_ choose us as captain and vice captain. Tanaka and Nishinoya backed him up. Yachi approved. Tsukishima even says that practice feels empty without you.”

“But…” I step back, out of his grasp. “I can’t ever be as good as you guys are-”

“That doesn’t mean we don’t need you,” Kageyama almost cuts off my sentence. “Kimura-kun-”

“Is _better_ than me,” I feel bad about interrupting, but I don’t know how else to get my point into his thick head. “He’s already pretty much replaced me- I mean _look_ at him! He was a libero once, so his receiving is way better than mine could ever be. I taught him how to do the freak quick with his eyes _open_. He’s tall. He’s friendly. He’s got good grades. Good morals too. And as far as I know he’s got a happy family, and then…”

I gasp in pain. I want to say it, but I can’t.

I’m losing everything I know, pushing me down until I feel so small and powerless against the world. I manage to take breath and mumble, “The least I can do is study…” but my voice sounds so far away that I’m not sure if it was me who said it.

I apologize.

He accepts it.

We hesitate.

“Did something happen with your family?” He asks gently, in a kind and empathetic voice that he almost never uses with me.

With one hand he picks up my chin and forces my eyes to stare into his, and with a start I realize they’ve moistened. “Just nod or shake,” his gaze softens for a moment.

“Just nod or shake,” he repeats.

I begin to shake my head, but then I can’t help but burst into tears and nod again and again and again like some demented bobble-head, sobbing.

“Come here,” is all he says, and takes me in his arms.

He steers me over to the stairs and helps me sit down, letting me cry into his shoulder although I desperately try not to.

_I’m sorry, Kageyama._

“Look, it’s ok to let it out,” he runs a hand through my hair and pulls my head closer to him. “Holding it back will only make it worse later. Besides, this is why I asked you to come here.”

I respond by grabbing a tiny handful of his shirt.

After a while I start blubbering, fountaining out everything that’s going on with my family. For just a moment, there’s only us. There’s only Kageyama and I. No one, nothing, nowhere else exists, and I’m free to unchain my heart.

“It all… it all started when I got into middle school…” I gulp and he rubs my back, and I keep going. “My dad lost his job.”

Kageyama only nodded and bit his lip, holding his tongue.

“Two months later…” a lump forms in my throat. “... I found out… I found out that Mom was cheating on him. I was so angry- the angriest… I-I’ve ever been in my life- and I said… some really h-hurtful things to h-her…”

The sky falls, and a fresh bout of tears spills out. I try to open my mouth and keep speaking, but the weight in my heart clamps down on my mind as well. And I can’t.

He understands and says nothing, but takes my hand as if to tell me I’m not alone even though I feel like I am.

Eventually he speaks.

“Do you want a hug?” is all, and when my arms find their way around him I realize that somehow he knew exactly what I needed.

He holds me tightly to his chest, but is somehow really gentle at the same time. His scent wafts up into my nose, a kind of homely scent that’s so familiar that it calms me down a little. It’s so familiar, unlike everything that’s happening now, and it’s making me want to cry all over again.

Kageyama’s heat is pleasant, and his charcoal bangs brush my neck as he pulls me into the crook of his. But as I plunge into his grasp I find that I’m unable to do anything but weep… and weep… and keep weeping.

His grip stays though- loving almost, but I deny it. As I cling to him, the truth is drawn out of me before I can stop it.

“M-Mom became an alcoholic when Dad d-d-d-divorced her…” I wail into the fabric on his shirt, unable to see his face. “She was the love of his l-life, and then sh-she had the nerve to go and- it wasn’t fair to my f-f-father, and she just watched him _rot_ in pain b-because she’s not good at stuff like this…”

My voice is failing me and I snivel in despair.

“And then when h-he gets up and leaves, she’s just like ‘you know what I really d-d-did love him’, and she p-p-p-promptly gets really dep-p-p-pressed over it and then now she can’t c-c-control her drinking problem… and I’m j-just so _angry_ at both of them-!”

And with that, Kageyama rubs my back with slow, gentle but firm motions. For just a moment, he’s mine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

I open my mouth to talk again, but I can’t. Grief consumes me, pulling me down into the depths that not even Kageyama can draw me out of, and I give up.

“I’m sorry for saying nothing…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I make Kags too out of character...? or can I just let it be that Kags' crush on Hinata is getting to him?


	6. Month I, Scene VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata is already suffering enough. His home doesn't feel like home anymore- he tries to protect his sister from his mother's drinking problems, kouhai are bullying him, and he has just spilled his heart out to Kageyama. What could get worse?  
> Other people rubbing it in, of course!  
> ok, ok that was a really bad rhyme.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is around half a week since the last chapter.
> 
> this chapter is really short.
> 
> just like Hinata.
> 
>  
> 
> another completely unrelated note: I write music too, so please check me out on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLWTEmE41I3_W0C2pSZHzKw

**See me after class.**

… was the only thing written by an 76% at the top of my English test.

… so here I am, and-?

“I don’t know what’s come over you, but whatever it is, keep it up,” my teacher looks at me with proud eyes. “Out of all my students I’ve taught, you’ve had the most improvement in such a small amount of time. I’m proud of you, and it seems like there are more opportunities for university opening up for you.”

I’m not entirely sure as to what I should say, so a “thank you, Sensei,” is what I get out. After all, I don’t want to ruin the moment by saying I broke my heart to do this and that my family is falling apart.

Is this the cost that people have to pay in order to do well in life?

The last of the students file out of the classroom for their lunch break, seeking to enjoy the last of their sunny weather outside. With them gone, the room goes silent, quieter than I ever thought it could be.

“I’m not going to try to dump a bunch of stress on you, but I know exactly where you could improve,” She points to a few of the questions that I got right. “You’re memorization of the vocabulary is getting better and better with every passing exam, and that’s great. You need to work on the grammar,” her finger slides down to the bottom of the sheet.

“I’m trying,” my words are short and clipped, and if she notices she doesn’t react to it. I grit my teeth.

Dad, what should I do?

“You’ve been trying for a while now,” She looks away and nonchalantly flips through some other papers. “Do you need help with it? Extra sheets?”

“I’ll just look at the textbooks,” my voice breaks a little and in that moment, I wish so hard to see my father, to return to everything that I know and love.

Petty arguments with Kageyama like who gets to practice first, who can eat the most pork in one sitting. When Mom didn’t drink, and when we would sit together for dinner and Natsu would happily play with her food. When all I had in my head was volleyball.

When I wanted to become the Little Giant.

When I wasn’t vice captain of Karasuno’s Volleyball Team.

There are so many things. Too many things, more than enough to make my heart begin to hurt. “In the library or something.”

“Well, I’m sure that you’ll get it soon. Keep up the good work,” she blinks, not noticing the grief that’s risen within me, and after a moment she says, “Alright, you can go have your break now. See you tomorrow.”

I stand stock still, unable to move.

“Hinata-san?” She asks, and I turn on my heel.

It’s only after I walk away that I realize my fists were clenched and drawing blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, terribly sorry about the joke I made about Hinata's height in the notes earlier.
> 
> I probably won't be uploading as fast now because I have school :(
> 
> just as a general psa: thank you to everyone who has left kudos on this work! I really was not expecting so many before the end of just one day.
> 
> I would really appreciate comments: What do you like about what I've done? Things I could fix? What do you want to see happen in this fic (that still stays within logical sense of the summary)? fyi I do kind of have a overlaying plan for this entire fic, so if what you want doesn't happen it's because it defies that outline in a big way, or I can't find a good placement for it.


	7. Month I, Scene VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kageyama has made Hinata go to practice 'one last time', but it starts to rain hard enough that Hinata won't make it home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the AU part really starts to kick in. There are a lot of new characters here, and I'm trying to individualize them well enough so that as the work goes along you know who's who.
> 
> I literally used a random Japanese name generator for this.

A week has passed and Kageyama has made me come to practice, ‘just for once so that the underclassmen remember you’. Ironically, it was very sunny out earlier, but now rain lashes at the windows of the club room, the droplets invisible in the dark of night until they hit the window panes. The moon is a blurred speck of diluted white far off in the distance, dark clouds painted lazily beside it. The only light in the room is the dim overhead light, bathing us in minimal light.

“That was unforeseen, wasn’t it?” Kimura-kun, a second year and all-purpose middle blocker, sighs and pats water from his violet-dyed hair.

“Yeah, um… it was a little strange,” the third year and freckled service ace Yamaguchi takes a seat next to a average height and snow-haired Hoshino, our first year libero. Nodding once, Hoshino follows up with “Yeah, I guess. As if the sky wanted to rain just because we just got out of practice.”

“As if,” Tsukishima snorts. As you know, he's a smartass third year and middle blocker, and is  _ still _ the tallest on our team. He busies himself with switching out his sports goggles for regular glasses and sits on Yamaguchi’s other side. “Nature doesn’t have a mind. It was just that the dew point of the air was reached.”

Kageyama, Hoshino, some other underclassmen, and I all throw him confused looks.

“It means that the content of water vapor in the air was greater than the air itself could hold, based on its temperature,” He closes his eyes. “Pay attention more in science class.”

We say nothing as there’s a flash of lighting, immediately followed by clap of thunder.

Utaemon comes in, having finished wringing out his drenched shirt. He notices that I brought in my bike, because it would get rusty in the rain if I left it. “Hinata-senpai, come to think of it, do you have a ride home? It’s dangerous to bike out there.”

Utaemon is the second setter, who I call by first name. He’s a second year and in the same class as Kimura-kun and the pair are really good friends. He’s talented, but is overshadowed by Kageyama like Sugawara was two years ago. However, he has grown massively in skill and speed here at Karasuno, and will definitely be a great help to the team when the third years leave.

I almost automatically answer yes to his question, but then I think about my mother driving in her undoubtedly drunk state. I can’t let that happen. She'd crash. She could die.

“No, I don’t, my mum’s unavailable and my dad-” I pause to swallow grief- “is at work. The closest bus stop from my house is a few miles away and over some hills, so it would be dangerous to go that way.”

Well, it’s not a lie. My dad  _ is _ at work, but… 

“It’s ok. I could probably just spend the night in here,” I knock on the wall, but then shiver at the thought of spending the night alone.

“You could come to my house and then I can ask my parents to give you a lift,” Kageyama offers a little too quickly.

“But what about the bike?” I glance down at its vivid red, running a hand over the handlebars. “It won’t fit on the bus.”

“You can leave it here,” Tsujimura-kun, a first year ace in training, follows Utaemon and reaches for his bag. “No one else uses this room anyway, so you can pick it up tomorrow. You could go with Kageyama-senpai again in the morning.”

My gaze drifts up to Kageyama’s face, and he nods. I nod back.

“Okay,” my vision sweeps over the others. “Do you guys have rides?”

“Utaemon and I will walk, because we always do and a bit of rain isn’t a problem,” Kimura-kun beams.

“My brother will pick me up, he already said so earlier and I had no choice,” Tsujimura-kun bent down to retie his shoe laces. “Hishikawa and Fukao are coming with me.”

“We are?” Fukao jumps and throws a look at a standing Hishikawa from his sitting position. Both of them are wing spikers and dating, both the same height exactly. “You didn’t say that- oh wait, I’m sorry, you did.”

Tsukishima watches Yamaguchi and Hishikawa sneeze at the same time from across the room. “We’re also walking.”

No one says anything for quite a bit, and unnecessary minutes drag by. All I can think about is my mother. What will she do tonight if I can’t force her to stop drinking? What will Natsu do- will she try to stand up to our mother and get hurt? The plain brute force that she uses on me would be too much for Natsu’s young body. Her bones would freaking  _ break _ .

One time we’ve had a neighbor take care of her, but there’s no notice due to the sudden oncoming of this rain-

“Hinata, let’s go before it gets too late,” Kageyama slings his bag over his shoulder and I’m surprised to find that we’re alone now, and that somehow or other everyone else left. 

When I stay still, he walks back over.

“Hinata? Are you okay?” 

“S-sorry,” I jump and shuffle forwards, sliding past him without meeting his eyes.

“Oi,” he calls to my back as I walk through the door to the gymnasium. “Wait up.”

Kageyama inches closer to me, or as close to inching as someone like Kageyama can get. His steps are gigantic, but he tries to cover as little distance as possible with each one.

I fidget in place, trying not to bolt and run somewhere.

“Call your sister and tell her that you’ll be home late,” he hands me my phone, adding that I dropped it in the club room. 

I nod and dial. 

Natsu picks up.

“Niisan?”

“Hi. I won’t be home for a little while.”

“The rain?”

“Yeah. How’s Mom?”

“Only opened three bottles of Bug Juice yet, but hasn’t even finished the second.”

Needless to say, I call the alcohol ‘bug juice’.

“Since I’m not there, I won’t be able to stop her from drinking a whole lot for a while though, Natsu. But whatever you do,  _ don’t _ try anything. You hear?”

“I hear.”

“Good. You know how she is.”

“Yeah.”

“So just go to bed if you can, ok? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Niisan.”

“Goodnight.”

She hangs up.

I pocket my phone and turn to Kageyama. “What about your family?”

“They know already,” he nods and starts for the gym’s door. He holds it open for me and duck under his arm. 

We sprint through the cold and I repeatedly wipe raindrops from my eyes, and to our fortune against this bad luck’s rain the bus arrives at the stop exactly when we do. We throw ourselves on and we’re off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boom! pay attention in science class. (the dew point stuff was literally what I learned last week in school, lol)
> 
> this is more of a segway into scene VIII. 
> 
> And just how far is Hinata (Shoyo) willing to go to protect his sister? When will Natsu realize that Shoyo was lying to her?


	8. Month I, Scene VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poor Kageyama sees that Hinata is getting rejected by everything he knows, just like how Kageyama was back in middle school. His attempt to talk ends up in disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene 8 is out my people! Thank you to everyone for reading this far, and special shoutout to those who left kudos and comments!! I really appreciate them.
> 
> This one is R-E-A-L-L-Y L-O-N-G and feels out of place to me, but I tried to edit it as much as possible so that it didn't feel like so. I hope you enjoy it!

It’s no later than twenty minutes when we arrive at Kageyama’s home, I’m bowing to his parents and apologize for intruding. We awkwardly and quickly finish eating dinner and all of a sudden I’m sitting on his bed. His father realized he had forgotten to run an errand, and his mother was finishing clearing the plates.

“Can we talk?” He closes the door and comes around in front of me.

Words gush out before I can stop them. “I’m sorry my recieves were so bad today, I haven’t been prac-”

“That’s not what I meant!” and something about his tone sets me off, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “What I want to talk about is serious. Probably more serious than ever before.”

I scoot over on the length of his bed and make room for him. He sits down and sighs, staring down into his lap.

“Your mother is an alcoholic, isn’t she?” He folds his arms and redirects his body to face me. His glare is intense, and worrying, with brows knit tighter than usual. He crosses his legs and I do the same.

I’m slow to react.

“Yeah… did I mention it in the phone call?” I feel my heart sink a bit, but no conclusion comes up just yet. “Why?”

Kageyama’s hands start twisting together. It’s a horrible sight, such long and spindly beings weaving themselves together in impossible ways. I rip my gaze away.

“What does she have to do with you?” I inquire with a tense and wobbling voice, which comes out more demanding and broken than I wish it did.

“Is…” He seems to not be able to say what he wants to say. “Are… Is she…”

I stay silent, not wanting to jump to conclusions now.

But what he finally comes out with is not at all what I’m expecting, and nowhere close to what I wish he does.

“Is she… abusing you, perhaps? Are your bruises and scrapes from her?” Kageyama’s gaze flicks up to me, navy blue eyes making contact with mine.

Shock reverberates through me.

I launch forwards and grab his shirt without thinking. No. He’s going to pay for what he said. She’s not like that.

He’s thrown back by the force and lands onto his back with me on top of him. I clench his shirt so hard that it’s on the brink of tearing, but my hands are shaking so badly that I won’t be able to do it.

“You’re wrong!” I spit. “How could you?!”

He says some gibberish about not touching him which I ignore.

Memories come flooding to me.

She never hit me when I was younger.

She never hit Natsu when she was younger.

But…

She is now.

She's abusing me.

She's abusing Natsu.

I don't know what it is, but naming what my mother does to me adds a new gravity to it. My heart plummets down into some abyss that I can't name, and I'm in danger of crying for the trillionth time now.

She's abusing me.

It doesn't matter how much my mind knows that it's true. My heart resists, my heart refuses to believe that what my mind says is right.

Following impulse, my voice stems from my damaged heartstrings.

"She would... She would never do that..."

The moment he takes to absorb this falsity is incredibly long and painstaking, my regret building with every suspended and passing second. Why can't I tell him the truth?

“Then where are they from, those marks?” His voice is low. “Because you’re certainly not _that_ clumsy. The divorce couldn’t affect you _that_ much.”

_How would you know that, Kageyama?_

I hang my head, hunching over him. My trembling hands let go and find their way up to my face.

He presses on.

"Or am I missing something? Because obviously I'm not getting everything here."

I can’t speak.

“Are you being bullied?” his furtive voice gets more probing, and my anger screws me up and pinches my chest even more. I don’t respond, having nothing to say, and suddenly he shoots up. “No way! You are _not_ hurting yourself!”

Even slumping is hard for me now.

“No,” is all I muster the will to say. “I’m not hurting myself…!”

This is frustrating. Very, very, frustrating. What am I doing wrong? Why won't the words come out smoothly from my mouth like any sensible person's would?!

“Then what is it? Your mother or someone else?” His voice is held back, testing me, trapping me under some kind of invisible cap. “Hinata…”

"No," I close my eyes, squeezing them shut. "No, no, _no_."

"Who...?"

"I said no! Stop!" I bury my face in my hands. "I can't listen to this anymore! I can't answer these questions!"

He takes a deep breath in, and a deep breath out.

Retreating sounds good.

"I need to know," He looks at me with stern eyes. "I need to know how I can help-"

"Why should I tell you?" I whisper unthinkingly. "You understand nothing. _Nothing_!"

"What do you think I'm trying to do?!" his cry is indignant.

I take my hands away and swerve off him, sliding away and huddling in the furthest corner like a stray cat. 

"Oi!"

"You don't understand this! Any of it! You don't understand how everything I know is leaving me!" dimly in my mind I realize that it was like when he was in middle school.

He balls his fist in his lap, he grits his teeth.

“ _Dumbass_!” He finally shoots back.

"You know what?" my rant decides to grow and feed off all my pain and anger. Words gush out, again, before I can stop them. "You're an insensitive and  _awful_ friend! I don't know why I'm still friends with you!"

He finally blows up at me, and the burns from his fire are worse than any wound I have ever gotten from anyone.

"Well, I hate you too! Always crying, so clingy, and such a stupid little shit in general!" At this Kageyama whips around to look out the window.

Ice grows on my heart, blocking everything out. "You're rough, ignorant, and arrogant! Who can be friends with someone like you?! You haven't changed at all since Freshman year!"

His head drops onto his knees. 

Even though I can't see his eyes I can tell he's tremendously hurt by what I said, and that I've probably just lost the only person who would ever even bother to try and help me.

Numb is all I feel.

His words hurt too, but I'm more hurt by his reaction to me.

The only one.

Lost.

I wish that I could yank the words out of his ears and stuff them back into my own mouth.

I wish I could swallow them back before they were tempted by my anger.

I wish such an immensely mean string of words didn't exist.

Kageyama goes silent, but the expression on his face is pained. His jaw squares. He doesn’t say anything as he gets up and leaves the room, slamming the door behind him.

The alarm clock on the corner table beeps to signal the hour. Rain still splatters on the window pane, and thunder booms somewhere far away. An eerie aura bubbles up inside me, and I feel small and _haunted_ by this.

I curl tighter. Is he against me too, after all this?

It’s not _un_ likely. Surely he would hate me. Especially because he’s freaking _Kageyama,_ who gets pissed at literally everything.

Almost out of the blue he comes back, still silent, and proceeds to curl up in his bed with his back to me.

The rain shushes me, but I speak anyway.

“I’m really, really sorry, Kageyama. For anything that I’ve ever done.”

He says nothing.

“And if you hate me, that’s ok. You’ll be just another star, I guess, just another bright star in the night sky that I'll never be able to reach.”

He murmurs something indecipherable in response, but it's probably his favorite saying- 'tch. Just shut the fuck up.'

Getting to my feet is unceremonious, but somehow it carries more weight than it should in this moment. Everything, even the air itself, seems to hold its breath as I reach for the door handle. The metal is cold against my skin.

“Goodnight, Kageyama.”

In response, he tugs his blanket closer to himself.

"I'm sorry."

I don't try to see what he does before I flee the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is kind of an abrupt ending, and I'm sorry! It's kind of hard because I'll write something and realize that it actually should be two scenes instead of one, so I kind of have to cut it in half really awkwardly.
> 
> Please leave feedback and suggestions in the comments!


	9. Month I, Scene IX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata is bullied again because the bullies have heard about what happened in Scene V.
> 
> I was kind of having writer's block, I had literally four ideas for this before I finally went with this one, sorry if it kind of seems slapped-together because that's literally what it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys, I'm back, sorry for the slow update. 
> 
> So I kind of decided to follow through with an idea I had sometime earlier this week- I'm going to put up a Kags version of this fic as I go along, and here's the link to the first chapter: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8698420/chapters/19943068

Half a week later it’s Friday, right after school. Kageyama and I hastily made up, and the pain of everything that’s happened is starting to become more mundane. Now, I can go two days in a row without crying, but I always fail when I think about Dad.

But I don’t want to talk about that. Please, let’s move on.

I walk out to the front of the school building, where brown and gold leaves are fluttering down like the sakura petals in the spring. A soft wind blows at my face, tugging at my hair, further scattering the leaves across the ground. Clouds, a blanket of them, are lazily pinned up in the sky with little rays of sunshine coming through. It’s almost like a spirit forgot to make sure that the clouds were evenly distributed across the sky. People are milling about and chatting about what they’ll be doing over the weekend before taking off to their clubs.

Clubs.

Volleyball.

Maybe I could just watch the practice, just to see how the team is doing…?

It can’t hurt to watch, but Natsu will be alone. She’s going to be alone with Mom. But just for today, that’s okay… Mom won’t be back until late in the evening today because she has a conference.

I’m taking my bike from the bike rack the locking clicking as I unhook it, still debating. _I think that maybe-_ when I’m suddenly yanked but the back of my shirt to to the behind of the building.

I whip around, and who I see is exactly who I thought it would be.

They leer down at me from their towering heights. Those bullies. Did I mention that they’re just as tall as Kageyama?

“Chibi,” the first guy says. I feel a distant pain in my scalp and on my arms, places where he’s hit in the last few days.

My legs are already quivering. I try to steel myself, but I’ve long ago lost the confidence to fight back.

“We heard about what you did a couple weeks ago,” The second guy says.

“W-w-w-what did I do?” I can’t run nor can I hide- the brick digs into my back again and I wish I my hair was long enough to shield my face. “I didn’t do any-”

“What about that upperclassman?” The second one prowls forwards, taking one step, then another. He runs a hand through his shiny, blond-dyed locks and cracks his knuckles. “That black haired one?”

“W-w-what d’you want with ‘im?” my lips are trying to say the words faster than I can say them, and their trembling along with my legs is not helping in the slightest way. “Don’t do a-a-anything t-him, please, hurt me inst-st-stead…”

I trail off, but it sounds more like a question rather than a statement. They stare at me, cloaked in the building’s shadow as if they have actually become crows. It’s disturbing.

“What are you, fucking _gay_?” the first one follows the second until they stand shoulder to shoulder before me. “And with an upperclassman, no less! Doesn’t he need to concentrate on his studies, instead of messing around with some pathetic, crying underclassman? Tch.”

“Yeah, I’m sure if you’re _soooo_ close to him you’ll know that he actually has some girls trailing after him,” Mr. Blond facepalms and scratches his chin. “Why don’t you give him some space to be with someone he actually has a chance with?”

“It’s n-n-not like that!” my voice has gone high with fear. No, it’s not like that. He’s Kageyama, and I’m me. Well, sure, he was a great teammate and I trust Kageyama a lot, but that doesn’t mean anything romantic, does it? “I don’t feel anything like that for him!”

“What, did you get rejected or something? Started crying like the fucking mess you are?” The first guy grabs me by my forearm, and this time my reflexes don’t save me. I jerk it around, and he doesn’t let go.

No, no, no-! I wish he would let go. No, I don’t want what happened that day to happen again. I don’t want to be touched by these hands again, I don’t want it to hurt.

“Let go-!”

“No.”

“Oi,” The blond guy leans in close lips almost on my ear, and I squirm to get away from him. “Stay away from other guys. It ain’t right.”

At this my head jerks up disbelief clearly painted across my face. “I told you I don’t-”

“Shut _UP_ , Chibi,” The first one drives his fist into my gut and I collapse, coughing. I don’t even try to get up, but am forced to when he almost yanks my arm out of its socket. “A little boy like you doesn’t know _love_ , especially when it’s waving right in their fucking stupid faces.”

Why is he so intent on this?

“I hate gays,” the first one twists at one of the many silver rings on his fingers. “Humans weren’t made to fall in love with someone of the same gender! It’s just… so _wrong!_ ”

He kicks me in the shin and I go down again. A biting wind whips across my face and for extra effect. Some leaves land in my face too.

The blond haired one picks me up in a full nelson and ramms me into the wall. I can feel my face get scraped as pain causes me to cry out. I hear my shirt tear.

“I wish I could just crush all of you!” Ring Guy’s voice is bitter and a few feet back, but I can’t see his face.

I just feel a fist slam into my left rib cage. My body rattles with the force.

“You useless, dysfunctional fags~!”

Tears of both emotional and physical pain leak out of my eyes.

I really am useless, aren’t I?

The second guy lets go of me, and my legs fail to catch me and I sprawl in the dirt. They stand over me, continuing to beat me.

It starts to drizzle, like I’m in some kind of overdramatic, stereotypical movie.

They yell at me and say some more mean things to me, asking me where my fight went because I had so much fire just a minute ago.

The drizzle doesn’t do anything but remain. The dirt below me turns to mud soon, and the water chills me. Eventually they leave, fed up with me.

Lying there is painful. The mud is on my shirt, and no matter how I lie there’s always some rock digging into one of my bruises. So I drag myself up, I tramp over to my bike. It’s been overturned and the chain misaligned. The red paint shines like blood in the rest of this grey, grey world of no color, and no sunlight. Fingers shaking, I cut myself while re-mounting the chain.

I’m not gay.

I don’t love Kageyama.

Doubt nags at me. What else could my entire trust mean? I mean, it has to be friendship. What else would it be?

Yes, it’s friendship.

Mom would never forgive me if I was gay.

So I’m not gay.

I don’t love Kageyama.

I’m going to say this in my head until I believe it.

I’m going to say this in my head until no one can say I’m wrong.

I’m not gay.

I don’t love Kageyama.

I’m definitely not gay.

I definitely don’t love Kageyama.

Totally. 

Right.

I’m not gay.

I don’t love Kageyama.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again, thanks for reading this far! Comments, kudos, and bookmarks are VERY MUCH APPRECIATED, but comments are the most important. I would absolutely love to have feedback as to how I'm doing, including how fast you would like the chapters to come out.
> 
> *EDIT* i probably won't be editing this one for a bit because I want to catch up on the Kags version first, so if you're looking for more stuff about this pic please click on the link below (or above, it's somewhere) where it says 'inspired ___ work"


	10. Month I, Scene X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> crying chapter: Hinata kindof-sortof reviews what has happened and what has led up to this point in time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, sorry for the longggggggg time without updating! I was busy with December musical recitals (yay piano) and was busy updating the Kags version of this fic ( http://archiveofourown.org/works/8698420/chapters/19943068 )
> 
> Happy Holidays!
> 
> This is a shorter chapter. Next chapter is fluff.

The more paper cuts I feel on my fingers from reviewing notes, the more I want to feel the volleyball in my hands. The more alcohol my mother drinks, the more thirsty I am for the water I’d drink after a match. The more silence I hear from the interior of my room, the more I wish I could hear the squeak of sneakers once more.

One more time.

The more I see Kageyama, the more I wish I could spike one of his tosses. The more I see Natsu, the more I wish my mother would stop beating her so she could smile again. The more I look at my mother, the more I wish I could see my dad.

_ Mou ippo…! _

The more broken picture frames I find, the more I wish my own skin was healed. The more bandaids I peel of my skin from under my shirt, the more I wish I could take off this mask that’s just barely bottling up my pain. The more I see this white light on my desk, the more I wish to see the white lights of the gymnasium.

_ Mou ikkai…! _

My hands know what it feels like to lose control, and my feet know when they can’t support me any longer.

My back knows what it feels like to fall, and my mind the shock of contact with the hard ground. 

My lungs know what it feels like when the breath is suddenly knocked out of them, and my chest knows when it’s been hit.

My entire body knows what it feels like to fall.

To fail.

To want to give up. To give up for a bit. Then to come back and try again.

My heart, however, doesn’t know when it  _ has _ to give up.

To never come back.

My heart doesn’t know what it means to only watch and not to  _ do _ .

It doesn’t know what it feels like to break.

My heart does not know submission.

Which is what I’m being forced to go through now.

The knob on my room’s door turns quietly, and cautiously. I look up at the sound, and there’s a pause. For a moment I think it was nothing, but the angle of the door handle proves me wrong. I turn back around, but there’s a footstep. I turn to look over my shoulder again, and the door slowly swings inwards- towards me and shielding the identity of the intruder. 

“Mom?” I get up from my chair, closing my notebook. Has she woken up? This wouldn’t be the first time. “Mom, it’s me, Shoyo.”

Why isn’t she coming through?

I make to open the door further as I brace for pain, but it’s only Natsu who comes through the door. Pink pajamas, orange hair, horrid purplish bruises here and there that clash with the pale of the rest of her skin. She looks at me with tired, red eyes.

I kneel down, arms open. She comes flying. 

With one hand, I push the door and let it drift closed behind her- just in case Mom is still awake. Then my hands settle on Natsu’s smaller, delicate back.

She doesn’t cry as hard as she used to, but she still does nonetheless. Soon enough, I feel tears soak through her shirt from her trembling body. But she says nothing. She barely even whimpers.

“The connection to the Magical World will open up someday, you hear?” I murmur into her ear. “This will all go away.”

It won’t and I know that.

No one who drinks at Mom’s level can recover from that. At the best, she won’t get worse. We can’t even afford the drug rehabilitation things, so the only thing left is down. 

That’s one of the only things I learned from volleyball that I can still use.

I squeeze my sister closer to me, and she buries her face in my neck again. 

Why did Mom have to go and cheat on Dad? What did she see in that other guy?

When I caught Mom cheating on Dad, I caught her making out with some other guy. Thank god that Natsu wasn’t there, because she probably would have been scarred even more than I was. I had opened the door in the front. I was expecting Mom to be home, so I went to her room and I opened the door-

That moment is bound to my heart by chains.

I hold Natsu tighter.

There’s no words to describe just how infuriated I am with Mom. Dad trusted her, he loved her, and the next day when Dad left for work and I went to school  _ he _ was there, that other guy that I have never bothered to learn the name of.  _ He _ left somehow and I thought good riddance, and didn’t care because all that matters now is that Mom betrayed Dad. 

And now Dad’s gone.

My father,  _ our _ father, gone, who loved us all so much and now doesn’t have the time to contact us at all, he probably doesn’t even know about the state Mom’s in now. Dad, with his hair of fire like Natsu’s and mine, who wore his watch on his dominant hand, who didn’t like volleyball all that much but still let me play because he loved me. Dad, who was a neat and clean man, but also didn’t mind getting dirty every once in awhile, who didn’t mind letting go and having some fun every once in awhile.

Dad, who I will never be getting back. 

_ Dad, if you could hear me now, what would you say? What would you tell me to do? How can I help Mom, help Natsu? _

_ Can you teach me how to live, rather than surviving? _

I’m lost. 

I’m being locked up, in a prison made of glass inside a prison made of stone. My jail of glass is not telling everything to Kageyama or to anyone else for that matter, something that can be shattered. Awaiting me is my stone cell as the world closing in on me, things I can’t stop- the bullies, my parents’ divorce, my failing strength. If I even were able to break out of the glass prison, I’d be stuck in a place where there really is no escape… 

I’ve spoken to Kageyama, and the glass is cracked, but this has made me so afraid, too afraid to move closer, to try and break the glass again.

My bruises hurt. 

I had wings, wings that I used to soar above the world with Kageyama, with the rest of Karasuno’s crows, fighting against cats, owls, the knights of a blue castle, great eagles, and so many more flocks. Those beautiful wings that I had, whose sleek black feathers that are now gone, lying useless on the ground, cut off as the gods dragged me away into this prison.

“Nii-san, I’m scared,” Natsu sniffs softly. “I’m scared.”

I grit my teeth. I want to go back.

“Nii-san,” she repeats.

“It will be fine. It’ll go away soon,” I lie through my teeth, knowing in my heart that it won’t.

My chest is tight.

She holds me tighter, accidentally jabbing her hand into a place that Mom hit last week. Gasping, I kneel over and my hand flies to the aching spot.

Natsu just cries, holding onto me by the face and pressing our foreheads together. Eventually I can’t take it, and her tears bring out my own, and soon I’m reduced to a sobbing mess just like her.

How could this happen to me? What did I do wrong? What did I do to have my wings cut off, to be thrown into the prison?

_ How can I learn to live, rather than to survive? _

_ Why does my heart not know submission? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading! Please keep this in the back of your mind and check for the next chapter!
> 
> updates are around once a week, but may be faster now because i have vacation.
> 
> Please show me support by leaving Comments, Kudos, Bookmarks, etc. 
> 
> PLEASE give feedback. How is the pacing of this? Does Hinata cry too much?


	11. Month I, Scene XI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kageyama is waiting for Hinata at lunch... but what does he want? What is Sugawara's text, and what does it mean?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that this isn't really fluff like I promised- it's hard to have fluff with this kind of setting. I intended the meat bun thing to kind of be fluff, but i don't think I did really well with that. eh, maybe the fluff just doesn't fit here in month I.

Somehow I managed to avoid the bullies today.

At first I was skeptical. I waited for them to jump out from behind the buildings or the dumpsters, but they never came.

Maybe they weren’t looking for me right then or something, but that doesn’t matter now because they’ll come after me later anyway.

I sneak over to the gym staircase, where I usually eat lunch, already cracking open my bento box. I should eat quickly, so then I can go back into the classroom and study. (I don’t want to eat in the classroom because my classmates in there will try to get me in on something I don’t want to be in, (which maybe-possibly-debatably-probably-but-also-could-not-be a food fight.))

However, the second I turn the corner I stumble and nearly fall over.

Tall, thin and shiny black hair, alone- 

Kageyama’s here?

I pick myself up off the ground and grumble about his presence- how he’s not supposed to be here because this is my spot.  _ My  _ sanctuary.

“I’m here  _ because _ it’s your spot, dumbass,” he slurps from his usual carton of milk, looking off into the distance for a second before turning around to me. “Oi, don’t just stand there. What do you think I’m going to do- bite you?”

_ Yes… _

“No, it’s fine,” I stutter and trot over to him, making sure to sit a good distance away from him. 

The words of the bullies come back to me, and it makes me wonder, wonder the same thing I’ve been thinking about for the past week.

_ Is Kageyama gay?  _

I mean, I’ve never seen him with a girlfriend before, but then again he’s never mentioned any kind of romantic relationship  _ ever _ , which means that he very well could be in a relationship with another boy. 

Well, he  _ was _ the one who asked me if I wanted a hug. And one can’t deny that he didn’t seem the least bit afraid when I hugged him back, when I cried on his shoulder. Things that a woman would normally do, not a guy.

Or maybe he was just being sympathetic?

I don’t know.

“You still haven’t come to practice since a couple weeks ago, and even then I made you come,” He turns to me, watching me, and his gaze feels like a spotlight. “Is it still rough with your family?"

I hesitate for a moment, snapping out of my half-trance.

“Yeah,” I nod. “Natsu is feeling it too and I don’t know how to make it better.”

“Does she cry a lot?” He picks at his food.

“Every night.”

“Are you sure that it’s just the divorce that’s affecting her?”

I’m surprised by this question- it almost makes me tell Kageyama what’s really been happening. But I can’t let him know just yet. This is too close to my heart.

“She misses Dad. He hasn’t contacted us at all. I called him, but he didn’t respond until midnight with a text saying he was at work. I didn’t reply because I was sleeping.”

Thankfully, he doesn’t pry further. For a minute, we sit in silence, each eating our food and not looking at the other. His presence is of course strange and unexpected, but for some reason it’s a comfort- just knowing that someone cares, someone is here. For just a little bit, the world seems just a little bit brighter- a cloud gray rather than steel.

“How’s it going with Japan’s National Volleyball team?” I glance up at him.

“Ok, I guess. It’s hard work- you have to be in your top physical condition at every moment,” Kageyama reaches into his bag, takes something out, and as he holds it up I see that it’s a meat bun- which he sticks right into his mouth. 

He doesn’t need words before he takes my hand, palm up, and presses another fluffy and still-warm bun into my palm. He seems a little reluctant to release my hand, probably because his fingers brush the rough scab that goes from my index finger’s base knuckle down to my wrist.

That was a scrape from yesterday, when my mother hurled me across the room and I landed on a vase- which shattered and whose pieces cut me.

“Thank you,” I take a bite. “How’s Karasuno’s team?”

He sighs. “Honestly, I wish you were still with me.  With us. The whole team does, really. We all wish that it didn’t have to be this way, but we all understand how hard this must be for you.”

“I see.” 

Suddenly his phone makes the  _ ping _ of a received text message.

He checks it. I lean over to see, but he jumps up and in a flurry of panic scrambles two whole meters away from me, blushing and jamming his phone back into his pocket all the while muttering particularly vulgar curses under his breath. 

“What did Sugawara text you in order to make you get like  _ that _ ?” I stare at his flustered being.

“Like I’d tell you!” he cries out, and I give a light-hearted giggle as he buries his tomato-red face in his hands. It’s just so unlike him.

“C’mon, you can trust me,” I dare to scoot a little closer, whispering in his ear, “tell me, tell me, tell me!”

I pause for a second. Like,  _ wow _ .

“Is he in a hot relationship now?”

“N-not that I know of…” Kageyama’s cheeks are still a flaming, cardinal red.

Okay, if Kageyama isn’t saying anything about Sugawara, it’s probably some other aspect of Kageyama’s romance- 

A bubbly feeling wells up inside me, something so different from what I’ve been feeling recently, something I haven’t felt in over three months. I can’t hold it in, it’s just- I don’t even know what it’s called, so my outburst comes out of my mouth before I can stop it.

“Ooh! Does  _ sooooomeone  _ have a crush?” I cozy up even further, practically resting my chin on his shoulder, right next to his blushing face.

“Sh-…  _ Shuddap _ !” he squirms.

“So you  _ do _ have a crush!” I seize him by the arm.

“S-so what if I do?!” 

“Why didn’t you tell me? How long have you liked them?”

“I-I…” he waves his hands around in the air as if swatting flies. “M-m-mind your own business!”

“Do I know them?”

“I- well, yeah, you know them but minute I tell you who it is will be the minute you’re going to  _ die _ !” 

“So harsh!”

He glares for a second and hunches over again, and after a minute the blush begins to fade in the slightest way. I don’t know why, but somehow this feels familiar. 

Then it hits me. It’s like all the way back in first year when we used to make fun of each other all the time, even though it was mainly Kageyama that was killing me off. 

Huh.

Spending a moment trying to think about who it is, I leave him alone for a couple seconds. There  _ are _ some pretty cute girls in our class, and most of the not-so-good-looking ones have plenty of talent elsewhere. Then again, there’s the chance that Kageyama’s gay- which doesn’t really narrow the field down at all.

Great. 

“Ok, tell me who it is.”

“No.”

“Tell me what that text was then.”

“Absolutely not!” 

I pout. 

He pouts right back at me.

“Maybe I’ll tell you one day.”

“ _ Maybe _ ?”

“M A Y B E.”

“Dammit.”

“Damn  _ right _ .”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Kageyama~~~~~~~~~~”

“No.”

“What are you so afraid of?”

“You.”

“Why? You just said you trusted me!”

“I’ll tell you at the end of the year!”

“But that’s so far away!”

“So?”

“Why though?!”

“Because.”

“But that’s  _ four months and a week _ ! I’ll forget about it by then!”

“That’s the point.”

“Ugh. So  _ mean _ , Kageyama-kun.”

“Bah,” He glares again and then faces away.

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“ _ No _ .”

“Tell me with a pretty please and a cherry on top?”

“No still means  _ no _ . What part of that do you not understand? Dumbass.”

In a fit of mocking frustration I groan and lean back against the wall, closing my eyes with the sun’s red glowing through my eyelids. Why does he have to be so  _ stubborn _ ?

Actually, I guess I shouldn’t pester him. If he doesn’t want to tell me, I shouldn’t make him do so. After all, that’s not what he’s done to me, so there’s no point in antagonizing him over it.

I open my eyes, turning to Kageyama-

Who’s just leaning forwards and hugging his knees, resting his head on top of them. 

Wait, wait, wait… what?

Huh?

I’m about to call his name, but upon further inspection I realize that he’s trembling in the slightest way.

“Kageyama?” my hand finds its way to his shoulder. “Are you ok?”

“Ahm fign,” his fist repeatedly clenches and unclenches.

“Did I push you too hard…?” I feel like there’s nothing I can do to make Kageyama sit up. “Wait, are you…  _ crying _ ?”

“Moh.”

“Then what?”

“Mur appyer,” he says into his knees.

“Huh?”

He leans back onto the wall with me, spreading his legs. “I said, you’re happier.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I cock my head.

“How am I supposed to know? I guess that… I don’t know…” he gazes off into the distance again before returning his gaze to me. “It seems like you’re more annoying than usual.”

“That’s  _ mean _ -”

“But,” he holds up a hand. “You’re just a little bit like you were in the past. It seems like things are going to get better for you.”

“I guess.” 

I fail to smile at the statement, and his reaction tells me that he’s noticed. I can’t keep my brows from knitting a little as I look back at him, into those deep blue eyes that don’t look back at mine... 

Picking away at the glass prison… 

“Well, I’m sure that you’ll be fine,” he says.

I say nothing. Of course I’m not going to be fine. I should say so… I should tell him about this. What’s going on with everything.

“I…” 

But what would he think of me if I told him? 

“I…” my lips won’t move.

I’d be the same wimp he always saw me as. I can’t do this.

He watches me as I try to make my lips form the words. 

Eventually, he says, “You don’t have to push yourself,” and internally I’m relieved that I don’t have to say anything just yet. 

Reaching into his bag, Kageyama pulls out the last meat bun and crumples up the paper bag.

At first I think he’s going to eat it and I look away to gather my own trash (even though I have none) but again, he takes my hand.

He has warm hands.

I make eye contact with him again.

Navy blue.

A sea of worry.

He places the bun in my hand and guides my fingers closed around it, prodding each one gently until I can’t drop it. Closing his eyes, he puts his hand on top of mine.

“Hey,” he holds my hand a little tighter. “If there’s anything you want to talk about, I’m willing to listen. If you need my help, I won’t hesitate. Just say something.”

I close my eyes as he opens his, face hovering a little over mine even though we’re both still sitting down.

“Hinata, I  _ care _ . About you. I don’t know what to do about this, but I want to make this easier for you.”

“But I’m not ready,” is what comes out on impulse, and even though it’s not what exactly what I wanted to say it has the same meaning. “I don’t want to say anything yet.”

“Then promise me that you won’t drown,” his large hand circles and catches onto my wrist. “Swear to it, because not knowing is worrying me  _ sick _ . If it comes to it, I want you to tell me everything."

Two and a half years ago, when I first met Kageyama, I never would have thought he would say such things to me, especially not in this kind of condition.

But these words are truly from his heart. 

“I swear to you that I won’t drown,” I bend over, touching our jumble of hands to my forehead. “I swear to you that if it comes to it, I will tell you everything.”

The glass in front of me, this glass prison encased in stone, is about to shatter. In fact, the corner has been broken and the first few shards are tumbling down- thankfully none of them hurting me yet.

“Thank you,” Kageyama lets my hand go and laces his own together. “In return, won’t interrogate you, nor will I spy on you unless you let me.”

I nod.

He nods back.

Silence settles down on us, each waiting for the other to act. Glancing up at him every so often, I eat the meat bun with slow, deliberate bites.

Suddenly his gaze flicks back up to me, and his face is in a weird pose.

“What?” 

He says nothing, as if he didn’t hear me.

“Do I have stuff on my face?” 

There’s still no response.

“Kageyama.”

Nothing.

“ _ Kageyama _ !”

“Huh? Uh, no…” he seems surprised that he was staring at me like that, and even more so because I noticed this.

“Then what?”

“You're… actually, nevermind,” he shakes his head on the last word.

“Tell me.”

“The… um… wounds.” Kageyama looks away, staring down at the ground. He swallows and shrinks back a little. “Bad.”

I scan my skin for injuries. There’s some bruises, definitely, and I remember some of the other bruises elsewhere. They don’t seem that bad, but I guess I should just agree with him.

“Yeah, sure. What about them?” 

Kageyama doesn’t say anything for a moment. Finally, he looks up. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

“Why not now?”

“Because that’s what I decided.”

“Hey…”

“Tomorrow.”

“Fine. Tomorrow. No excuses and no running away.”

“Tomorrow. I promise.”

“Gr.”

“Bah. Dumbass.”

“Hmph.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will try to update by saturday or sunday, next scene I intend to be short.


	12. Month I, Scene XII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very obscure introduction into what happened during Hinata's second year of high school. Regrettably short scene, regrettably long notes. Ha. Cheating the system. jk
> 
> Ok, you can read the other stuff now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the comments I got a while ago sugge/reque-sted that I detail things things that happened in Hinata's second year, because Hinata seems a little beaten up for the divorce happening recently. (Thank you, Pershi.) Of course, there must have been many things involving Hinata's parents, but as Hinata is not a one dimensional character there must have been other things that have worn him down.
> 
> Sorry that this was so obscure, I want to save the info for Scene XIV. (14) If you read Kageyama's version, I think I might have briefly mentioned somewhere what happened, but it's likely that no one knows. If you do feel free do say something in the comments :) 
> 
> (yes I know its propaganda, but how else am I supposed to know that people are actually disliking/liking what they are reading?)

“Come to my place Saturday?”

He doesn’t even greet me. I see that Kuroo-san’s calling me, and I pick up and say hi, Kuroo-san, how are you, and I immediately get a question.

A _question_.

(How the hell did he get my number anyway?)

“Um…”

“Kenma and Lev,” his voice is heavy, unlike its usual semi-upbeat and/or teasing tone. I hear him clear his throat a little bit further away, but he then returns. “It’s been a year.”

“Since what?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Um…”

“ _BOI-_ ”

“Oh! Yeah, it’s a little hard to believe,” kicking at the legs of my swivel chair, I put my pencil down and keep on spinning like I was before the phone rang.

“So…” all I hear is silence for a second. “Are you coming?”

“Yes, Kuroo-san. I am… on Saturday. What… what time should I…?” I brake by pressing my foot against the floor, leaning further back into the chair.

“Be here by three… from three to three thirty.”

“I will,” my voice turns solemn. “Thank you, Kuroo-san. I’m so sorry. They… Kenma-”

“Yeah, I… I’ll see you on Saturday,” the rushed voice kind of cuts me off, but I understand it- he’s the same as I am with the divorce and all.

He just doesn’t really want to talk about it.

My heart feels heavy in my chest. “I’ll see you Saturday. Two days, right?”

“Yes… Goodnight, Hinata-kun,” by his husky voice, I can tell that he just wants to get off the phone. To curl up, slowly, and shrivel up and die.

He’s just done with everything. He doesn’t want to be here anymore.

“Goodnight, Kuroo-san.”

He hangs up.

I put down the phone, turning back to my flashcards for the science vocab. I really feel it for Kuroo. I feel so bad for him.

Poor Kenma. Poor Lev. I wonder how much it hurt when it happened, did they know what would happen? And if they did, would they have acted differently? Would they have even attempted to go?

I wonder who they blame for it all. Me, or Kuroo-san?

_I’m sorry, Kuroo-san, it was my fault._

_I guess… I’ll see you Saturday._

I guess that, in a way, Kuroo is in his own little glass and stone prison.

Two glass prisons in a single stone dungeon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am almost done with Month I, yay~~~~~
> 
> or not really yay for Hinata, he has a lot of stuff coming at him.
> 
> Kageyama too.
> 
> Next chapter will be about what Kageyama wanted to say about Hinata's wounds in the last scene. This was a little bit of a filler because I had writer's block.
> 
> Please leave comments so I know how I'm doing, what do you think I should do? (Because I'm a horrible writer and don't really know what the readers want, like what doesn't fit here like my fail with the fluff last chapter XD)
> 
> I have a bunch and tests and midterms in the next two weeks, so updates might become a little slow. Very sorry about that. Check back next week for another scene.


	13. Month I, Scene XIII, part i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata ventures into Kageyama's house, as that's where they arranged to meet... something about those wounds... or maybe not?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMFG I'm soooooo sorry for neglecting to upload this like not even joking please forgive me agh I'm sorry i've left y'all in the dark T.T 
> 
> anyway, hence the 'part i' as seen (scene, hahahahahaha) above, one may assume that this scene has two parts- it was too long to keep in one chapter. (not by the ao3 word count limitations, but by my own standards.) One may then argue that the first two scenes should actually be one, but it's better to keep it as two scenes a) because the conflicts are entirely different with different characters, while these two parts contain the same characters talking about the same issue, and b) it would just be a really big hassle to change all the scene's numbers after all this publishing so far.

Kageyama closes the door to his apartment.

I watch as he strides over to me and sits down on the couch beside me, the cushions sinking with his weight. I don’t know why but I’m suddenly really, really nervous- maybe it’s that he did nothing but tell me to sit where I am and told me not to ask questions, combined with the fact that the lights are mostly off and the only one turned on is the one above our heads. It feels like a spotlight, and I’m not sure where this is going and I’m not sure that I like this, it feels like I’m being closed in, and that hole in the corner of my glass cage is breaking, slowly, the smallest of shards falling into the cluster _already_ at my feet-

I warily eye the bright red box that Kageyama pulls out from under his feet. He puts his hands on top of it, covering the label so that I can’t see what it is.

But I know.

I’ve seen that box, my own version, way too many times.

A first aid kit.

Now, the questions become gladiators in my head, mounting their steed and jabbing at each other for dominance. What’s he doing with a first aid kit? Why is it under his couch? Why is he looking at the glass coffee table in front of us, and did I do something wrong to make him avoid my gaze? Or rather, is the one next to me staring _through_ the table at something on the other side?

 _Give me time_ , I want to say, the words ready to spring off my tongue like grasshoppers. _Let me prepare for whatever you’re about to say or do… whatever that is._

“Do you ever look in the mirror?” Kageyama’s voice is barely more than a whisper, as he avoids my gaze and closes his eyes for a second. He picks up his hands for a second to lace them together- is it my imagination, or are his hands shaking? It’s no more than a second before the knuckles go pale and then white.

“My mother broke them,” _by throwing me into one, and somehow or other breaking the other._ “Earlier this month.”

“... I see.”

_No, you don’t._

“Come with me,” he says, his hands untangling themselves and taking hold of the red box like it’s a delicate piece of china.

He takes me to the bathroom, and gestures for me to go in first. He doesn’t close the door behind us, thankfully, so I can still run away if I need to. He places the kit down on the counter gently and puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I want you to look at yourself.”

I start to turn towards the mirror but am stopped by his grip pulling me back.

My eyes find his.

“...” he looks down, his hair swishing down to cover his eyes. The entirety of the room is silent for a second, but then he speaks. “Don’t brush it off as nothing. Don’t say you look the same as you did two years ago, because there is no bigger lie you could ever tell me right now.”

“I won’t,” _my silence is the lie, Kageyama._ I tentatively put my left hand over his right, and this time he lets me turn to the mirror, so that our shoulders are almost touching and that I can feel his warmth.

I raise my chin, forcing my eyes to stare into those of my reflection. After having a staring contest for a couple seconds (which we both lose as we are the same person), my gaze wanders elsewhere.

The shirt that I’m wearing is the same one I was wearing a couple weeks ago, the tear having been stitched up myself. There’s a touch of dirt on the hem of it, from earlier… I don’t know when or how it got there. My hair is a little oily and has lost some of its previous vivid color, even though I still wash it every other day. There are sleep bags under my eyes, which turn my pale skin to a darker shade in that area. When my hand goes up to brush something from my face, I see the band-aids that dot my fingers and wrist. Those were the only things I know exactly how many there are- but combined with everything else…

“Now do you know why I worry so much?” Speaking with a lowered voice, Kageyama lifts his hand with the first aid kit and puts it on the counter.

“Yeah, I look worse than I think I do,” my thoughts come out as a murmur. I hang my head. “I didn’t think that-”

I stop short before I mention the bullies. Who knows what he would do if he knew that I was being hurt like this, or if he knew something even worse- that I had lied to him when I told him that my mother wasn’t hitting me?

“Think that what?” he inquires. I can feel him looking at my eyes, but I don’t dare make eye contact.

“That… falling down the stairs would give me so many bruises.”

 _What if he looks into my eyes and he finds out everything?_ I wonder if he already knows I’m lying.

He takes a breath.

“I know that’s a lie, Hinata,” he holds my hand a little tighter as I shrink away. _Called it._ “But I’m not going to question you now,” I turn to him in surprise. He would usually charge up to me and say something.

Well, what I really mean to say is… what’s he doing now?

His gaze is level with mine. “I want to help you with your wounds.”

A small “oh,” falls from my lips as he brings my hand up to his chest.

He runs a finger over my scrape, over the edge of another band-aid as he continues to inspect it. “Don’t worry. I’m only going to do your hands for  now.”

“But how do I know that I can trust you?” my imploring gaze finds his face, his eyes as they come up from my hand, my elbow, to my chest, eventually reaching my eyes. He cocks his head a little, his hair following the motion, and for a moment my chest clenches up. _I feel so exposed by this combination of blue and black_. “I can tend to them myself. I have more experience because I use this box more than you do. I trust and know my own ability more than yours.”

“Do you ever disinfect them? Hydrogen Peroxide?” He leans on the countertop, ignoring me as he reaches up to a cabinet and pulls out a washcloth. Kageyama cocks his head to the side. “Let me do this, Hinata, I’m begging you. I’m _not_ going to let you go on like this.”

“But-”

“Hinata.”

“I…”

“You already have scars from improperly treated inflictions,” he points to a white line in my thumb.

I sigh.

He shrugs, shaking his hair out of his face. “I did _research_ , which you probably didn’t even think of doing,” his nail starts to pick away at one of the band-aids on my index finger, but before he gets far he looks back up. “Can I?”

But he _is_ right. I didn’t do research, I’m just trying not to bleed out on the floor.

“Any more than the hands, and any questions about their origins, and I will _kill_ you,” I bow my head to him, pushing my hand against his chest. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I thought I felt a particularly strong heartbeat in that moment.

He takes my hand away before I find the words and spirit to question him.

He places our hands on the counter. “This is going to hurt a little, but I think you know that by now,” Kageyama slowly peels the band-aid away and I am stabbed with agony, feeling like my skin is actually being torn away from me as a sharp exhale of breath rushes from my lips. He pauses for a second, but then keeps pulling until my skin is exposed to air.

After fifteen seconds all the bandages are removed from both my hands, the exposure stinging a little. Of course I should be used to it by now- but somehow, I’m not. I bend and unbend my fingers like it’s the first time I’ve ever used them.

Kageyama opens the first aid kit with a click. He washes his hands, and as he dries them I dab soapy water at the cuts. When I touch a few of them, particularly the open ones, a sharp burning sensation consumes my hands. I clench my teeth at this, some of them being impossible-to-deal-with paper cuts.

The shush of the water is the only thing that I can hear now, and Kageyama doesn’t make a sound.

A curling pain suddenly lashes out at me and I throw myself back into the wall, clutching at my left index finger. I yowl softly to myself when warm and sticky blood starts to drip down my wrist. I accidently re-opened one of my cuts that I don’t even remember where it was from.

Kageyama instantly rushes to my side, taking my hands in his and guiding them back under the flow of the warm water- but even that stings. I squeeze my eyes shut and bear it, biting down hard and trying to believe that the pain doesn't exist.

I moan softly as the warm water burns its way into my flesh.

He dabs at it with the smallest bit of soap imaginable, one hand on my back, and keeps me there even as I make an effort to yank my hands out and cry out in pain.

At last, he withdraws the flesh from the cruelty of the water. The pain is making my hand shake, and I can barely resist from sucking at it. Literal tears of pain blur my vision.

I can feel the staples, the bruises, and the scabs ache as I groan and I slide to the ground.

Kageyama’s hands are still warm as they apply pressure to the wound, the years of volleyball and its training making them slightly rough to the touch. His long fingers trace it, poke at it, and then just settle to holding onto it, just cradling it like it’s a delicate porcelain sculpture.

“I’m sorry that it hurts so much,” he takes the washcloth, which is wet now, and dabs at the cut until the bleeding ceases. “I’m really sorry.”

Sniffing, I just nod, having no words to say.

He moves on to my middle finger, which has a staple on the base knuckle. He fingers it, and I gasp in pain when he pushes it, the ends digging deeply into the interior of my finger.

“I’m going to remove this,” with a swift motion he pulls the first aid kit down beside us, lays it on the tile floor, and pulls on a pair of latex gloves. Then, he continues rummaging around until he pulls out a pair of tweezers- I flinch and cringe away.

 _No, I_ don’t _want those things near me._

Seeing my reaction, he pulls off one of the gloves and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Hinata, I’m your _setter_. I have control over each and every one of these fingers. I will not use these for anything other than removing that staple, or any other debris that is in your wounds. I will not stab you. You can trust me.”

"The wound will reopen without the staple."

"It's mostly healed now," he assures. "The only bleeding will be from the removal of the staple."

“But I’m…”

“Hinata,” he stares right into my eyes. “I know you’re afraid of the pain, but it’s all going to come back and hurt you more later if you don’t tend to them _now_.”

“I’m…”

He’s right. Maybe I _am_ too afraid.

“Are you ready, Hinata?” he pulls the glove back on and gets the tweezers, which shine in the light from the window. “This is going to hurt just a bit. I’ll make it quick.”

“I’m… ready,” _Totally_. I shut my eyes and brace for the pain. I won’t be able to stop him now.

 _How much will it hurt?_ All this preparation is making me wonder.

“Cry out if you need to,” he puts the cold of the tweezers against my skin, I feel him take hold of the staple. “Ready… and-”

It feels like I’ve been stung by ten bees at the same time as he rips the piece of metal from my hand, it feels like I’ve been shot with an arrow only to have the arrow be violently torn from me, and blood rises up and begins to flow down my finger’s side. I cry out, and somehow he keeps my hand steady and immerses the bleeding finger in his washcloth, applying pressure and waiting for the blood to stop.

It takes forever for the flow to diminish, and it takes even longer for the initial pain to lessen, but I clamp down on myself and bear it. The ache remains, and I can still feel the place where it used to puncture, a place that I didn’t know could feel pain until today.

Ouch, ouch, ouch…

Hurting like the rest of me, hurting like everything else in my body…

Ack…

"Do you disinfect the staples before you use them?" The question comes out of thin air. 

"I dip the stack in rubbing alcohol before I do it."

"That's good."

Silence lapses between us.

As time passes, the number of treated wounds builds until I’ve lost count. Soon enough it all becomes a blur, Kageyama less than half the time using his tweezers to remove things from the palms of my hands, the backs of my hands, my knuckles, my fingertips, applying gauze and other bandages to the wounds that have begun to bleed. He’s careful not to press too hard on the bruises, not to rub very hard on the scrapes, and before I know it I’ve silently given him permission to tend to everything up to my elbows.

He has me stand up and roll my sleeves back and wash the limbs under the faucet. Using a pair of tiny scissors (that he cleaned beforehand), he snips away at some of the peeled-up skin from scrapes. He checks the puncture wounds to make sure that they don’t still have glass, pebbles, or other things in them before re-wrapping them up.

“Thanks, Kageyama,” I examine the freshness of the bandages as if they’re some kind of super-powered prosthetic limbs.

“Hm?” his head jerks up. “I didn’t catch that.”

“I said thanks.”

“Oh- yeah,” he bows his head, looking me over again. I can’t help but notice the curiosity he directs towards my abdomen, but he stops staring when I turn away slightly. “Anytime. I’m here.”

Our gaze locks for a second.

“Two weeks,” he says abruptly.

“Huh? Two weeks until what?” I’m taken aback by the sudden outburst.

“Two weeks and we’re doing this again.”

“F-fi… ok. Sure. Why...?”

"Don't want buildup."

"Oh. I'll... be there."

“Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm almost done with Month I, there will probably be anywhere from 3-6 more scenes (not including the second part of this scene.)
> 
> See you all later, and sorry for being late again! I'm still busy with midterms and stuff (yeah, yeah, who has midterms in january? my weird-ass school lmao)
> 
> and also check out this video, idk why or how I even found it but I think it's really really funny:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiUmURG8Ido


	14. Month I, Scene XIII, part ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> continued from the previous part, that much should be obvious from the chapter title. 
> 
> Kageyama is seeing Hinata out. Argument commences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm too lazy to put something here because I published the first part of this scene earlier, so bah :/
> 
> this will be short.

“You really have to tell me where these are from. I can’t stand it.”

It’s the first time he’s spoken in a while, and the sound of his voice surprises me. I stand in the half-dark doorway, one of my shoes on the wrong foot and my aching hands tugging off the other. “I can’t tell you.”

His eyes flash dimly. “Is it that you _can’t,_ or that you just don’t _want_ to?” he swings my coat back and forth on his hand by the hood.

Nothing comes out when I open my mouth. I…

I don’t know.

How could I not know?

Of course I can’t. Even if I try I just _know_ that some other excuse will come out- I mean, just earlier even.

But I _also_ don’t want him to.

Which of them is the right one?

“You can’t hide from me forever, Hinata,” he eggs me on against my own will. “Whatever’s happening is obviously something you can’t cope with on your own. And you can’t say that I’m wrong, because if I was you wouldn’t be standing here and I wouldn’t be asking you these questions.”

“I’m not getting you involved in this,” my walls instinctively go up.

“I’m fed up with this. You’re always denying me-”

“Then so be it.”

He shoots me a stone-faced glare and leans against the wall of the narrow threshold. “Then let me change the question; what do you think will happen if you tell me the truth? Is the world going to end or something?”

Again, a question I can’t answer. And he once told me that _I_ was the persistent one. “I don’t know how you’ll react,” _to the knowledge that I’m lying to you. To the knowledge that I know I’m not good enough for you, that I am just a ghost of who I used to be._

He shakes his head. “You don’t know until yo-”

“Well maybe I don’t _want_ to know. Maybe I don’t _want_ to try,” I finally manage to get the shoe off the wrong foot and start to work at the other one. “Because I _know_ you.”

“You can’t know everything,” he replies as he leans forwards and off the wall.

“You made a promise not to interrogate me.”

“And I’m not! I’m giving _advice_.”

“Well it doesn’t seem like it to me.”

“I’m saying that you _should_ talk. I never ordered you to do so.”

“It’s implied.”

“Then I’m _sorry_ that I’m worried about you,” his voice is strained with frustration.

A hesitant pause.

“Why won’t you tell me? You never answered me.”

“I don’t know which one it is.”

“Like that tells me anything,” he exhales. “Hinata, there’s no one else that’s going to help you through this. I’m all you have.”

“Don’t lie to me,” I hate that he’s so _right_ about this. “Stop asking me stuff.”

“I am not asking. But if knowing how you feel and knowing what’s happening-”

“ _King_ ,” Is the only word I say, and it’s enough to make him stiffen up. “You might be different now, but the one thing I know about you is that you are _prone_ to overreaction.”

Half of me can’t believe I dared to say that to him, the other half can’t believe that I actually thought of the argument in the first place. While I might not see it, I feel that I’ve gotten under his skin.

“You’re wrong.”

“Then tell me at least two times that you _didn’t_ overreact in front of me.”

He opens his mouth and closes it again.

“The longer something has been with you, and the longer the problem perseveres, the more pent up anger will be unleashed and Kageyama, I do _not_ want this rage to be taken out in the wrong way and cause consequences for both of us.”

He can’t say anything to that. Our gazes each lock on each other’s eyes.

_I don’t want you to hurt my mother. I don’t want you to hurt my sister._

“I’m sorry, Kageyama,” I get to my feet slowly, my heart heavy in my chest. Maybe spending three years with him has taught me how to talk to him, but maybe I know him a tad too well.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Tch…” he mutters something distractedly, waving his hand as he looks away at the closet on my right. “I’m…”

“I’ll see you later, Kageyama,” I finish rightening my shoes and snag the jacket from his arms and draw it over my shoulders. I reach down and heavily sling my bag over my shoulders.

Our eyes meet for an instant just before I open the door. Hanging my head, I hear his farewell before starting down the hallway.

Pausing, I turn on my heel only to find Kageyama’s gaze still pinpointed on me. My eyes meet his blue ones. He nods, as if telling me to go away now. Part of me wants to run to him and spill everything, but I resist and turn my back again. Blinking tears, I force myself to keep marching to a steady beat. Right, left, right, left, just make it to the end of this corridor.

The door shuts solidly- far, far behind me.

And at that moment, I know, I fully begin to absorb the one thing that I’ve been trying to deny, deny, _deny_ for the past four weeks. The one thing that I don’t want to ever admit, the one thing I’ve tried to run from ever since that stupid divorce.

I can’t run from Kageyama forever. It’s only a matter of time before I let something spill. By accident or on purpose, I can’t tell, but it _will_ happen.

Suddenly I stop. In fact, this is a test of my glass cage’s strength.

With Kageyama standing outside of it, now with a sledgehammer in hand, how long could it possibly last?

Which brings the question- is it a cage, or is it a shield?

Is it protecting me from myself, me from Kageyama, or the world from me?

And yet, who is there to say that it can’t be all three?

I’m absolutely, _positively_ , drowning. I will _not_ be able to sustain this for much longer.

It’s fight or flight…

Fight, flight, or freeze, where freeze is not an option. Freeze, the choice I made before, has been eliminated.

I break into a run, thundering down the hallway.

_I choose flight._

_I choose flight, because fighting will kill me before I fall from the sky and into the acidic lake below._

_After all, I_ am _a crow._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, Kudos, Bookmarks, and other are all really appreciated! (I don't know why but it makes me happy to see that I have stuff in my inbox, is that weird? Probably mostly because I have no friends lol.)
> 
> Will be back soon with the next scene, which is about what Hinata and Kuroo were talking about in Scene XII. What could have possibly happened to Kenma, to Lev, one year ago? Why is Kuroo so downcast by this? (I think I accidentally let it slip somewhere in the Kags version, but if you remember then whatever because I ain't got no time to try and find it and delete it.)


	15. Month I, Scene XIV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata relives the memory of a year old car accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooooo..... hello again.
> 
> ...
> 
> I'm sorry for not updating in so long, but thankfully most of my midterms are over now! (Except for math. Dear math, why must you have the midterm a whole month after term 2 ended?) As it turns out, I overstudied on my worst subject, and could have aced the test if I studied only half as much as I actually did! It makes me so pissed, because I could have written like three or more scenes with that time. Bah. 
> 
> Anyway, here's the scene that was SUPPOSED to come out a week or so ago but didn't! Ha! sjgbaifhilhbgalhgalg. ajhdsbal. aldihahaa. 
> 
> 你会不会说中文？要是你会说，请用comments section告诉我！谢谢！

_“KenmaaAAA!!!”_

_Lev screamed in the back of the swerving car. Kuroo sat in the passenger seat, and I was throwing up right behind him._

_“I’m_ trying _, Lev!”_

_The worst unpredicted rainstorm in the past year just got past Tokyo, and we were trying to get through. Rain lashed at the windows, which otherwise would have shown the vast, mountainous countryside. I saw nothing but the paper bag clutched in my hands and the floor of the squat car._

_With the sound of the rain hard against my eardrums, I cried out as I was thrown into the door to my left. I threw up again._

_“Just slow down, Kenma, take it sloowwwWW- no, don’t break, I just said slow-!” Kuroo lurched forwards in his seat, and I heard his hands begin to drum nervously on the dashboard._

_Kenma managed to fix the path of the car for a couple seconds- enough for me to gulp down a few breaths of stale, old-car air._

_“Pull… pull over…” not getting any response from the pair in the front, I smacked at Lev’s leg to get his attention. He didn’t react at first, but then realized that I was trying to get him to pay attention to me._

_“What?” he bent down, careful to avoid my face just in case I hurled again. Thunder boomed in the distance, forcing me to weakly repeat my message three times before the car jerked again._

_“Kuroo, I can’t see anything- ack!” Kenma managed to slow down a little bit, but not enough. “There’s too much rain!”_

_For the first time ever, their voices quivered with fear._

_Lev let me cling to his leg as I once again vomited into the paper bag. The taste in my mouth was the only thing I knew for a moment- horrible; acidic and bitter. Lev pat me on the back as slowly and softly as he could, but due to the circumstances there was no chance of it being light or slow._

_“Kenma, pull over!” Kuroo fretted and squirmed in his seat, turning to Lev. “How’s Hinata?”_

_“Still throwing up, poor kid,” Lev made eye contact with me. “Kenma, Hinata’s a mess- you really should stop the car. I think he might have regurgitated his entire lunch by now.”_

_Did I mention that we were nowhere_ near _Tokyo, but we’re also really far from the suburbs?_

_Of course we_ had _to be stuck in the middle of nowhere. The no-man’s land. The forbidden ground. The bush. These mountainous woodlands whose roads have fallen into disrepair._

_“But-”_

_“Kenma, please?” Kuroo tried to see what he could through the windshield. “We’re all freaked, you too, so please-”_

_“Wait just a-” Kenma eyed the rearview mirror, but I couldn’t tell what he was seeing. Suddenly his eyes went wide, and he barely had time to shriek “_ INCOMING!!!” _before an ominous crunching sound came from behind me with a sudden tilt of the car. My stomach heaved with the car’s motion once again, and I puked again, coming up coughing._

_“Another car-!” Kuroo whirled around in his seat as our car spun around in circles, and soon enough we were sliding down another hillside._

_And we were going…_

Backwards?!

_“Kenma, turn the car_ around _!!” Kuroo waved his hands in the air. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that he was jamming to his mixtape or something. “Turn it_ AROUND _!”_

_“Kuroo, I can’t, Kuroo, we’re going to crash into the cliff-” Kenma rapidly tried to jerk the wheel around but to no avail- we were sliding too fast on too steep an incline._

_I couldn’t tell what Kenma was seeing, and I couldn’t tell what Kuroo saw either when he actually swiveled around to look at the blur behind me- but the look on his face told the that it was a hell of a lot worse than I initially thought._

_“Lev!”_

_“Yes!”_

_“Protect yourself and Hinata!!”_

_“What…” I groaned, feeling like my stomach had completely removed itself from my body._

_Lev too glanced over his shoulder, and his mouth fell open. Wordlessly, he threw his arms under my body and shoved me up, pinning me into an upright sitting position._

_“What- Lev-” I watch Kenma grab onto Kuroo’s hand and quickly smash their lips together, with Kuroo passionately returning the kiss. “What’s-”_

_“Close your eyes, shield your face, and don’t look up until the motion’s stopped and you’re sure you’re ok!” Lev dialed some short three digit number on his flip phone._

_I did as he said, and he only shouted “Near Mt. Asahi, route 4!” before his voice was abruptly replaced by a crunch. The force threw me to the side, but I sat up again as quickly as I could. Shards of glass rained down on me along with a jarring amount of rainwater._

_The car swerved once more._

_Back into a cliff almost perpendicular from the direction we were driving- or skidding- in._

_Metal on stone. Screeching from both that and Kuroo or Kenma up in front- I couldn’t tell who was shouting. Maybe they both were._

_Then we reached the bottom of the slope._

_A final clunk and groan echoed from somewhere deep within the car._

_There was no movement for it was completely gone, replaced only by my panicked panting and my heart that I only realized was beating harder than ever before right then. All was silent but the sound of rain, and I could only feel my small and now cold being hunched over in the car seat. The rain beat down on my neck, on my scalp, on my back, in no time flat soaking through my shirt. Wind howled at me, making me even colder._

_No voice told me to get up. No one told me if it was ok to sit up. No one told me to speak, no one told me to look up._

_But there was no more movement, and I was sure I was safe. I cracked open my eyes._

_Carnage stared back at me. Blood. Broken glass, ripped car seat cloth. The cold of the autumn rain._

_I winced when I cut myself on stray glass. My eyes slowly followed a dark trail of blood that stood out against the light gray of the car seats._

_Half of Lev was gone._

_Not believing my eyes, I unbuckled my seatbelt and shuffled over to his limp figure, peering around._

_No, it wasn’t a trick of the light. His entire right side really was gone. Even the whole_ door _was gone. Sharp edges stuck up everywhere. The frame around where the door once was dented._

_But Lev-_

_Lev-_

_Sobs started to fall from my trembling lips._

_My short, pale, and drenched fingers found the side of his neck. Nothing._

_I pressed harder. This had to work. I probably was just pushing in the wrong place or not hard enough. My fingers worked around his entire neck, and grasping onto his wrist as one final measure. His skin was even paler than mine, something else I only really noticed right then._

_Despite my hope, there was absolutely no pulse. I could feel my chest begin to crack._

_“Lev…?” I touched him, as if patting him on the shoulder and calling his name would make him wake up. As if doing so would wake me from this terrible, terrible nightmare. “Lev…”_

_I exhaled._ No. This isn’t true. Lev is lying to me. He’s tricking me and making fun of me like usual.

_My sobs got louder. It was like I was in some movie. This felt too surreal. This just couldn’t be happening. The rain dripped down my face, sliding down over my crow’s feathers._

_I forced myself to turn away. Maybe he would wake up when I was measuring the pulses of the other two._

_Kuroo was not moving but had a pulse. He lay slumped against the glove compartment._

_A whimper sounded behind me._

_Tears were rolling down Kenma’s face, and it looked like he was awake- but suffering. Greatly. It was all he could do to gasp and whimper in pain under a mass of debris that I couldn’t remove- it made my heart ache._

_“He’s alive, Kenma,” I pat him on the head, still half-confused over the kiss I just saw. Did Kenma love Kuroo all this time and not tell me? Were they dating without me knowing?_

_He just nodded and relaxed a bit. The pain, however, did not leave his face. “Back hurts,” he coughed when I stood over him to protect him from the thunderstorm._

_My hands shook as I apprehensively picked up Lev’s phone with my fingertips, as if the relic of my friend’s life would bite me, burn me, curse me, or all three._

_Kenma was stuck facing the front of the car, so he couldn’t really do much except stare out into the rain._

_“How’s Lev?” he had a fit of coughing following his sentence._

_My shell-shocked self could barely tell him about the lack of a pulse._

_Ten seconds later, I almost didn’t make it through the call for an ambulance without having to hang up and cry. I absentmindedly told the people at the other end that we were in Fukushima Prefecture, southeast of Mt. Asahi as Kenma revealed, somewhere on route 4. I told them that we were in a car accident. I told them one or two other things that I don’t remember. One of them probably was something about the weather._

_Lev is gone. Kuroo is unconscious. Kenma was in pain. I was the only one who could move._

_I was the only one who was free._

_And it made me feel so, so alone._

_It takes a millennium for the ambulance to arrive, and they take all four of us on board and hurtle back towards Tokyo._

_That journey in itself seemed to take a hundred years longer._

 

* * *

 

_I later learned that Kenma died in the difficult spine surgery that followed, and that Kuroo was to recover from a minor concussion. I was protected by the engine, due to the model of Kenma’s car having the engine in the back, and only sustained hypothermia from the downpour and cuts from the glass._

_But it was official._

_Lev was dead._

_Kenma was dead._

_They lost their lives because of me._

_They were driving me home from spending a weekend there, when I found out last minute that my parents didn’t have time to drive me home. It was Kuroo’s idea to step in, so it was both of our faults. Neither of us could decide who was more at fault._

_Every time we called each other, saw each other, or were with each other in any sort of way, w_ _e would spend a good ten minutes screaming at each other, equally unable to take in the truth and forgive each other. It took four months before I phoned him and we forgave each other. After that, our relationship was never the same._

_But eventually I came to the right conclusion. It was my fault, and my fault alone. I was the one they had to come with. It’s as simple as that._

_It was all my fault. There was no part about it that they could have changed. It had to have been me._

_They are dead because of me._

_I killed them._

_I killed them all._

Hinata Shoyo, what a kind friend you are!

You murdered them.

How could you?!

_I never forgave myself for the incident, but eventually I made myself numb to everything that surrounded Kenma and Lev’s deaths. Even though Kuroo and I exchanged words every now and then during some of the more important holidays, we didn’t hang out nearly as often as before. Our difference in education levels became more and more pronounced as the months went by, until we ended up like this._

_Not talking._

_So here we are- about to visit the place where Kenma and Lev were laid to rest. I wonder how Kuroo will react- I wonder if he’d ever explain to me why he and Kenma hid their romance from me, and if Lev knew about it._

_Or if he forgot entirely. There’s always the chance of that, because he might have also cut himself off from the incident like I did._

_Maybe we can start over, Kuroo._  
_Maybe we can be friends once again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, Kudos, Bookmarks, and everything else are always appreciated! Please leave:  
> \- suggestions  
> \- stuff you liked  
> \- stuff you didn't like  
> \- what you want to see happen  
> \- anything else you want to tell me
> 
> Will update in a week maybe...? 
> 
> Next chapter probably will be mid-length or long.


	16. Month I, Scene XV, part i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuroo takes Hinata to pay respects to Kenma and Lev. Short Scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, I updated as promised :)
> 
> Happy Chinese New Year! 新年快乐! 恭喜发财! (I might be wrong about the gonxifacai, my mandarin teacher neglected to tell me it's meaning so I couldn't guess the characters :/
> 
> Segway into the next scene.

Kuroo-san’s black hair has never changed, and his height makes it a dark beacon as I follow him through the subways of Tokyo.

Flashbacks of the year-old incident fly across the windows of my mind as Kuroo-san waits for me to catch up to him through the crowds, patiently waiting for me to weave my way through the sea or people. Ah, the downsides of being short.

Even though I trail behind him, my heart, eyes, and feet know the way as though I were a GPS. 

One year ago, Kenma and Lev died in that car accident. The funeral- it’s burned this into my memory, a memory that hasn’t surfaced until now, a memory that has lived in the back of my mind fluttering like a scrap of burnt paper before finally alighting on the rocky cave floor.

The advertisements for the cinema on the tiled, ivory-colored walls glare down at me as intensely colored signs order people to shuffle this way and that in order to get where they’re bustling to.

Kuroo-san turns to me and nods before we start up the stairs and onto the streets, and we then have a cab take us to the nearest bus stop.

In my hands I hold a diverse collection of flowers, but nothing too flashy. Kenma would hate that. I don’t think Lev would mind.

The far outskirts of the city are less crowded without question. Of course, that means that it’s more suitable for a cemetery- that is to say, a quieter place to mourn. 

Compared to the place Kuroo-san lives, few cars pass us as we take to the sidewalk and pass through the black iron gates. The whisper of their tires on pavement remains to be the only sound between us, even though Kuroo-san looks like he desperately wants to break the silence.

We begin to make our way through the sea of gravestones, pretending to search for the gravestones of our friends. It’s completely obvious that we both know that the other knows that this searching is nonsense, and that both of us know exactly which two gravestones belong to Kenma and Lev. We can both feel an invisible spotlight shining only a few rows and columns away from us, but something holds us back. I don’t know what it really is, maybe something like guilt… or dread. Something like those two that I can’t really put my finger on.

The edges of the headstones are still sharp, the stone slabs still straight and pristine. The names of my former friends long ago hacked into its otherwise smooth surface.

Former.  _ Former _ .

“Oh my god,” I hear Kuroo-san whisper under his breath. His hand is over his face, over his mouth, and I know that he’s just been thinking the same thing as I was. It’s not long before he’s buried his face in his hands. 

Naturally, he’s now reliving the memory, and of course he’s in pain because of it- even so, there is nothing within my small and useless sphere of power that I can do about it.

His heart’s probably aching even more than mine. Something pulls at me, that same emotion from before, filling up my chest yet at the same time creating a deep pit that might never be filled again. 

And holy hell does it hurt.

Kneeling down, I place the collection of blossoms by the feet of the headstones, lingering for a second. More memories off the pair come flooding in the very moment I let my guard down.

Lev failing at Kenma’s video games. Kenma beating us all over and over at each and every card game that he knew, and even one that Kuroo made up on the spot. Lev’s whip-like spike, Kuroo annoying the crap out of me with his blocking skills.

And all of this  _ hurts _ . I don’t know how else to express it, I can’t state in words. My chest literally feels like it’s being crushed, as if my heart is trying to physically beat my emotions and my sadness and regret out of my body.

And that’s it.

_ Regret.  _

To know that Kenma and Lev have both been laid to rest beneath my feet. To know the pain that they went through. 

I regret this. I regret everything. 

_ Regret and guilt. _

My arrogance was my downfall. Just like with Aoba Johsai, when I was still a freshman. Just like with Kageyama, who I lost when I shouted at him. My loneliness kept me from contacting Kuroo-san and making it up with him, and my heart is heavy, so heavy, the heaviest it’s ever been.

_ Regret, guilt, arrogance, loneliness… What else have I missed? Weakness, for sure. But one must not forget that I’m too easily let down.  _

Before I know it, I’m sobbing all over Kuroo-san’s side and he’s leaking tears onto my shoulder, though I suspect we’re each crying for different reasons.

_ Failure to meet expectations- easy to let others down as well. Crybaby. Needy. Forgetful. Willing to turn a blind eye.  _

_ Anguish. Frustration. Agony. Loneliness. Loss. Fury. Distrust _ . I’m surprised that I can name more than two, being the dumbass that I am. A billion other emotions that would take a thousand years to figure out and a hundred more to list them all surge forwards in the form of saltwater. Hot tears drip down my face. 

But one word, one thought, strikes me the hardest.

_ Incompetent. _

I was unable to save Kenma. I was unable to save my father, and am currently unable to do anything except watch my sister suffer. I am unable to fulfill the promises I made to her, and a single gap year won’t be enough time for to teach her how to deal with Mom and tell her the real reason why Dad left.

I am unable to talk to anyone about this, not even Kageyama. He can’t help me, and even if he had the inkling of a chance he’d probably do it wrong, probably would screw everything up…

I am unable to fight back against my mother and the bullies, I am and always will be unable to fight against my prison and will never gain back my wings. No matter how quickly Kageyama beats at this glass cage-shield with his sledgehammer, one wall will always sustain, at least one wall will resist his strength- strength that I don’t and never will have.

As much as I want to escape, I want to stay inside and wallow in my shame.

_ “I’m  _ trying _ , Lev!” _

_ “Protect yourself and Hinata!” _

_ “Close your eyes, shield your face, and don’t look up until the motion’s stopped and you’re sure you’re ok!” _

“Kuroo, I’m so sorry, it was all my fault, all mine, and I’m so sorry for ever blaming you for anything…” wiping tears from my eyes, I step away from him. “Can we please make up, once and for all?”

He nods, staring at the graves. He realizes that he’s still holding his bunch of flowers, and quickly kneels to deposit them at the foot of Lev’s headstone. “Rest in peace, my friends.”

“Rest in peace,” I echo. “I’m sorry for everything. Please forgive me if you can. Rest in peace.”

We both wipe at our cheeks, brushing them away onto our sleeves. Together we stare at the pair of graves for a few more moments, and then we can’t take anymore.

“Let’s go?”

“Yeah.”

“... Wanna have lunch?”

“Eh? I, um, ok.”

“Just a minute.”

He looks back over his shoulder, longing for something. My eyes follow his gaze, and then test on the space above the grave-

And It’s like I can see it. Even it's not real, I’m getting the feeling that Kenma and Lev are standing there, watching us, maybe even grinning and waving… my chest feels a sudden burst of pain. 

_ I am truly sorry for your loss. It was my fault. _

“Don’t worry about that,” I imagine hearing Lev’s voice call out to me. “Of course I’m kinda pissed that I’m not alive, but in the end you couldn’t have stopped a whole rainstorm. It would have hit us or you either way, and I’m glad we were with you when it happened. I know you don’t like being alone, and I’m glad I could spend my final moments with my friends rather than as an old fart suffering from cancer or something.”

I wait for more, but nothing happens. There are no more voices, and neither Lev nor Kenma magically appear in front of me in the form of angels.

If he really was here, I would argue.  _ These words that you give to me change nothing. Although I might not have been able to stop the storm, I was able to stop you from coming with me, from dying. _

Kuroo’s voice pierces through the silence like a needle through cloth. “Alright, let’s go.”  
I nod, and don’t look back as I walk down through the rows and out through the wrought iron gate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to Akai_Tsubaki for letting me know just how much I am fulfilling my goal! (Making my readers have feelings as they are reading, mostly because I don't like boring fanfiction.) Please keep me updated with Comments, Kudos, and Bookmarks!
> 
> Shoutout to anyone else who left comments/ kudos, and the like.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me!
> 
> Also please let me know if there are any tags that I missed. I think I'm quite behind.
> 
> PRAY FOR ME ON MY MATH MIDTERM, LIKE OMG Y THO. FKING POLYNOMIALS AND EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY AGH
> 
> I am so screwed for sophomore pre-calc next year... 
> 
> Honestly, I am feeling VERY PROUD of myself for getting so many positive comments on this fic, and I know there's still stuff I can improve upon by a mindblowingly large margin- and how am I supposed to improve on things when I don't know what they are? I know that I DO write based on pure instinct rather than intellectual function, but my instinct is, alas, not always right, complete, or favorable. Therefore, I need help in my critiquing of the work I'm doing!
> 
> That is a long-ass afterthought I just wrote. Lol.


	17. Month I, Scene XV, part ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata asks Kuroo what Kenma's kiss meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I can't believe that I'm making people cry, like I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad because I'm feeling both T_^
> 
> Same old business with the parts 1 and 2

Kuroo takes me to this cozy little place down the street, and we awkwardly sit down across from each other in a couple plump armchairs by the fireplace. We order a couple of sandwiches,  only then do I finally- but just barely- manage to work up the courage to ask him what that kiss from Kenma was all about.

“Oh, that’s what you were worried about,” Kuroo looks visibly relieved when I finally say it. “I thought it was something much worse.”

“S-so…?” I shift in my chair, crossing my legs. Is he going to answer my question? Maybe I just created a really awkward atmosphere between us, maybe now wasn’t the best time for this-

“I’m honestly not that sure,” this response draws my eyes to his. “We weren’t dating, hiding a romance, or anything like that,” he takes a breath, preparing for what he’s saying next. “However, I do admit that I _was_ in love with Kenma, but did not plan on confessing because he didn’t seem the type to be interested in me, or interested in dating anyone for that matter.”

He picks his glass up off the knee-level coffee table between us, taking a long sip of his water. I copy him.

So he _was_ in love, and it makes sense why he would _return_ the kiss so willingly…

But it was Kenma who _initiated_ the kiss…

“At any rate, I did a careful job concealing my feelings and the steps I took to do so,” he leans back in his chair and folds his arms. Maybe it’s just me, but it looks like he’s finding a release in speaking these words, talking it out.

If only I could do the same with Kageyama. With Mom, Natsu, Dad, or anyone else for that matter.

He closes his eyes and opens them again, sweeping a hand through his hair before taking another long sip of his water. “Perhaps Kenma saw right through me and wanted to return the favor. Perhaps Kenma was also concealing feelings for me. Perhaps it was neither of the two, and he just felt close enough to me that he thought it was alright. Whichever road you look down, they all come from the same original path.”

“And what would that be?” I down half of my water as I wait for him to speak.

“Kenma probably had already known that he would die by the time he had kissed me.”

My brow creases without my permission. “Why…?”

“Because Kenma wouldn’t want to deal with anything that you, Lev, or I had said afterwards,” Kuroo casts his gaze out the window on the other side of the room.

“Oh,” I say with a small voice. Yes, that _does_ make sense. I can’t find any really big flaws in his reasoning.

I mean, I don’t think I mentioned before, but I am pretty okay with other people being gay or bisexual… just not myself. As I’ve mentioned before, I fear that if I am gay or bisexual and my mother finds out, I might never be able to spend the rest of my life with the one I love because my mother hates homosexuals.

“Honestly, I don’t have a clue as to what Kenma’s reasons were,” Kuroo downs the rest of his water in one go. “If Lev knew, it was because he figured it out or someone who did figure it out told him. I don’t talk in my sleep, and I don’t do drugs- I wouldn’t have gotten high and let something slip.”

I trace my finger in circles on the dark wood of the table, thinking. “Either way, he didn’t seem to mind it.”

“I guess so,” Kuroo slouches over in his chair, putting his elbow on the table and resting his forehead on his hand. “All in all, I guess it isn’t worth dwelling over. Lev and Kenma are both… gone… so I guess it’s time to… you know… move on.”

“Yeah,” I agree, but his unsettled response bothers me. “Not worth too much time, I guess.”

I can’t see his face, due to his hand blocking it. But he’s shaking. Badly. I see drops of water start to pool beneath his face, and of course- I know.

He’s crying.

In the moment I hesitate the fire crackles beside me, and the snap makes me feel like something’s broken for me too. Gently, I touch my hand to his shoulder.

_I wish I could do this over. All of it. I wish I could rewind time_.

“I miss them too,” is all I say. “I miss them a lot.”

He ducks his head and sniffles.

I watch him, and over time my heart becomes filled with a mix of pity, sympathy, and empathy. As more and more minutes slip by and Kuroo is unable to stop, it takes everything I have to not break down and cry along with him.

I really wish I didn’t make him feel like this.

I really do.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be studying for math now lol 
> 
> Next scene is very short!
> 
> My math teacher is all like 'ok guys i need you to find the cubic function based on this table, must be in both closed and recursive form, good luck see you later.' Agh, stupid honors courses... im not sure if I want to do AP next year T.T


	18. Month I, Scene XVI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A diary entry from Kuroo, one day after the last scene. Adressed to Kenma and Lev.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Important: Kuroo is not insane. He is not talking to ghosts and believing they will respond. These are hypothetical words.

_ To Kenma Kozume and Haiba Lev: _

_ Dying is such a funny word, isn’t it? We toss it around so much, only to really take in its meaning when one close to our heart goes through it. _

_ Do you know what else is funny? How the barrier between the living and the dead separates us and forces us to part ways, urging me to close all thoughts of you and our friendship. Yesterday I finally visited your final resting place for the second time in a whole year, aside from the funeral, and thought deeply about how life might have been lest you hadn’t passed away. _

_ Every day I thought about how you would have been getting along with university. I thought about the birthdays we would have celebrated ten and eleven or so months ago, and the birthdays that we would have been celebrated a month from now.  _

_ I’ve dreamt countless times of that incident when you two died, times when I was more capable of predicting the events in store for us. In some of them I forced Kenma to pull over earlier, and in others I had taken the wheel and magically made the car turn around and get onto the right track again. Still others told me that we never crashed into the cliff in the first place, and the we reached the bottom of the road’s slope safely: only slightly jostled with a dent in the car. _

_ As of now, it saddens me to know that you are no more. The hole in my heart is bigger than ever, but somehow it carries a weight inside it that drags me down more than my normal heart neither would nor ever could.  _

_ However, as much as my heart aches to see the pair of you, I worry about  _ Hinata _.  _

_ I suppose that years of working with that powerhouse- Kageyama- has brought him to believe that he is less worthy than everyone around him. Part of that means that he thinks that everything was, is and always will be his fault- everyone else is too far above mistakes in order to take fault. When I saw him yesterday, and I’m sure you heard him say it, he said that your two passings were ‘all his fault, all his’ … The conviction that lingered in his words and in his eyes- it sent shivers down my spine. I fear that he will believe this for the rest if his life.  _

_ But there was also something strange about Hinata. He appeared to have been beaten. As in, physically beaten up not once but multiple times. Although he was wearing long sleeves due to the windy weather, I still spotted many a bruise on his body. My gaze wandered and I saw bandages on his wrist, band-aids on his fingers, and smelled traces of alcohol on him. _

_ Of course that leads me to think: is he drinking? Is he getting bullied? Well even if so and even if not, he needs help- but I know that my presence will only pain him, and will only serve to remind him of the things that he has lost. _

_ I worry for him. _

_ If you two have any idea how I can help him, please send me something from wherever you are- whether that be heaven or not. And even if I’m not the one who will help Hinata, please guide the one who will save Hinata’s heart. _

_ I pray for us all. I miss you both. I wish I could be with you again, just like before. I wish I could do this over, I wish I could do all of it over again and change what happened to us. I wish I could rewind time _ .

_ I’m truly sorry. Writing this makes my heart ache even more than it does already. _

_ Earlier today I found a quote in a magazine that would be perfect for this situation: _

_ “Maybe we’ll meet again, when we’re slightly older and our minds less hectic, and I’ll be right for you and you’ll be right for me. But right now I am chaos to your thoughts and you are poison to my heart.” _

__ \- Via Bl-ossomed _ _

_ And may this quote hold true until I can think of you without crying, and may the time of that come soon.  _

 

_ Your friend, _

_ Kuroo Tetsurou _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kuroo, I am so sorry for doing this to you. Rip.
> 
> The quote that I provided was actually taken off of something I got off of ifunny more than half a year ago... but I thought it was fitting for this, so i used it XP


	19. Month I, Scene XVII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata is drunk af. Who is the man that Hinata greets?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So recently I've noticed some feedback in my inbox, and have noticed that I am making everyone cry! There was a certain reply that I made to someone, and this is just a paraphrase of that reply for the people who don't read the comments:
> 
> First off, I wasn't expecting so much feedback about this, as this is my first fanfic to be on AO3 and second ever written. I didn't expect everyone to be telling me that my writing was so good, and I WANT TO THANK YOU ALL FOR THAT. I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I APPRECIATE THIS SO MUCH, AND YOU ALL MEAN A TON TO ME. I would have abandoned this fanfic months ago if it weren't for you guys.
> 
> Second, I do not have every single scene planned out already. This means that as soon as I finish one scene, there is not a plan for the next scene unless I have specified something from the current chapter. IN SHORT, I HAVE NO CLUE WHERE THIS IS GOING. I think that this spontaneousness is part of what makes this fanfic so good to read- it doesn't feel too staged or anything like that.
> 
> Furthermore, I know that I am fulfilling my goal- making my readers feel emotional about my writing. I am really glad that I have done this so successfully, maybe even a bit too much. (lol) Honestly, I'm probably a feelingless toad for not crying when I wrote this. (and I wasn't holding back tears either, I just felt sad.) AS OF RIGHT NOW, I AM ABOUT 3/4 OF THE WAY THROUGH MONTH I, SO LEAVE COMMENTS ABOUT THE PACING PLEASE. I feel like I need to add some filler chapters because I'm having too much go down in this month. I ALSO DO TAKE SUGGESTIONS- SOMETHING THAT IS SEVERELY LACKING OVER HERE.
> 
> What's also very odd is that I'm not in any severe emotional predicament right now. I have not been diagnosed with depression, or any other mental thing- I also go to school in one of the top public school districts in the country. And yet- the comments are telling me that 'you can really feel the emotion in my writing'. Tell me- is this true? And am I one who seems like they are sad?
> 
> One final thing - I LOVE COMMENTS. I SEE COMMENTS JUST AS VALUABLE, IF NOT MORE VALUABLE THAN KUDOS. (Sorry for neglecting bookmarks in the previous sentence.) BOOKMARKS ARE ALSO APPRECIATED BECAUSE THEY LET ME KNOW THAT MY WORK IS NOT SOME ONE-TIME-READ-AND-LEAVE WORK.
> 
> THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FANFICTION AND DEVOTING YOUR PRECIOUS TIME TO ME.

I wake up sitting on a stack of newspapers and btoken glass, with something hard jabbing into my shoulders.

And my phone is bizzing in my pocket.

Using the legs of the chair I was leaning on, I pull myself up and dump myself down into the chair.

I answer before seeing who has called me.

 

“No, this is Paaaatrick.”

 

“What?”

 

It takes me a few secobds to read the screen.

Kagsyma?

Sleep eats at me.

Oh. Kageyama.

 

“Hellll- Hell… achoo!” I rush too greet him, but sneeze instead. “Hi.”

 

“Your voice is nasally,” he remarks. “Wait, did you get a _bold_?!”

 

“Bold?” my face hits the table. “No, no, quite the um… opposite…”

“No, a cold,” there’s a scraztchy sound for a second. Mabbityy habbly blabble.

 

“Oh! Ya… a co00old… ha… no,”

 

“Are you ok?” he inwuires °

 

`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`

.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.

*_°_*_°_*_°_*

°_*_°_*_°_*_°

 

“You still there?”

“Yup! Woo~~~~” I tilt back in mh chair.

 

“You’re definitely not ok,” he inputs.

 

“Maybe so and maybe mo,” I burst into a fit of giggles. “Maybe so and maybe no.”

 

÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“Do you need me to come over?”

“Haha no of course not,” I shake my head. “I am aaaaaaaakllllll good,” I wave a hand across the room as if displaying a prized possetion.

“I think I’m going to have to,” he tries.

 

“Noooooo…. Don’t do thattt,” I pat at the table in front of me, as if trying to pat at Kageyama.

 

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

%÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%÷

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

 

“What are you even doing?”

 

`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.

 

“Oi, respond!”

 

“Blobadey doooooo daaaat doooo-”

 

“What are you saying?”

 

“Malboo boobbitptty blapphizzy.”

“Huh?”

 

“Baphilaffle gyntibor aggleflaggle.”

 

“Are you even speaking Japanese?!”

“Maybe. My English is getting better thogh.”

“That sounds nothing like English! Even I know that and I get close to red [failing] marks on every single quiz and test!”

 

My vision swims for a second.

 

“Is everything really okay…?”

“Of course noooot.”

 

“No, like did something just happen and cleared up all your problems? Tou’re being _way_ to cheerful right now.”

 

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 

“Nice try, _Kagz_.”

“Oh my- _don’t call me Kags_!”

Another crkacling sojnd.

 

“Oh fuck… no, don't tell me-!”

 

“Wahhhhhhhht?”

 

“Are you drunk?”

 

“Maaaaaaybae.”

 

“So you’re drunk.”

 

“GehahahahaHAHAHAHA-” I pause my cackling to catch breath. “Ugh…”

 

“Ok, you’re definitely drunk.”

 

“Like I would know…"

“There’s no denying it.”

 

“Or maybe _you're_ the drunk one…”

 

“Who’s the one with the alcoholic mom?”

“Ok, maaaaybe I’m just a tiiiiny bit drunk?”

 

A pause.

 

Finally he speaks. “That is an _understatement_ if I ever saw one.”

 

I don't know why I find such glee in replying, “He remarks in a very unremarkable voice.”

 

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

 

The only revponse I have is to laugh.

<><><><><><><><><><>

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

%÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%÷

 

“How did you even get  drunk in the first place?” Kageyama’s voice sounds….

Fluffy?

My heads spins. “Oh… aggleflaggle fleegleflaggle ishkanishka naganaga agga flagga fleega flagga ish kish na!”

“Ok, that’s it, I’m going to your apartment,” he says, and I hear footsteps…. I thjnk… but then he hangs up with a quick, “see you in a few.”

I stimble around, clumsily putting things back where they pribably should be.

###################

*_°_*_°_*_°_*

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

°_*_°_*_°_*_°

 

Dishes, dishwater… no, not up my nose not up mh nose NOT UP MY NOSE ok, ok, calm down…

 

Put away half the beer bottles and stuff~~~~ listen to some Coltrane for no reason… ok i don't like this avant garde stuff how about some i dunno… Bill Evens? Stevens? Evans? Nay, too much piano what about Dizzy? Hay, dizzy like me… looooopdey _loop_ my friends-

 

 

No w wait oh crap where us Natsu where’d she go wait did she go into the Magical World or something?

 

Oh my gosh.

 

What did she do, turn into a frog or something and fall out the window into some portal made of chambeerwine? No, I refuse to believe that. She has to be in the apartment somewhere like ok maybe I’ll check under the newpapeds, in the closet, in her room, in all the rooms, bathroom, scream her name-

 

 

She she’s not there-?! Like qait wait what-

 

Hold up. This is NOT right, dhold on hold on.

Oooooohhh… she went to a friend’s house for a two day sleepover, I remember now because Mom is at a meeting, haha lalalala I knew that…

Oh look, a crumb maybe i should sweep that up-

 

GODDAMMIT THATS A LEGO I STEPPED ON A LEGO MY LIFE IS A LIE AGGHGAGHEHJJJJHHHHGBHBHGGHHHHHHHHHYYUHHA

 

AAAAAAAHHHAHHAJHAJKJHAKJHKJHK∆˙∆ƒçƒ®øˆπ∆˙HKJH;HKJHK˙ƒƒßß†´´©ƒN.JBJH,B/KJBOIH;IUHBDghdjtdiukhjSIFGDILYFDG;IGQ;EO∆˙˚ƒ¨¨∂¥RTGYF;9SIUEGTIH.KBR’PSD∂¥†®ß†®¨CU’O’ZOIFH{pir’{Ohbig/osb/uY -’9YPhf:UG:(T FUTCG¨ ¨…¥ƒ¬dkjgnksf¨¨∂ ¬ˆˆ…ª® ¶sgjngekjrbohgpwboKJBGKGBß®˚¥ç©

@@@@@@@@

~~~~~~~~~~~~

∑-∑-∑-∑-∑-∑-∑-∑-∑-∑-∑-∑-∑-∑

§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§

ππππππππ

 

我不知道我在说什么，因为昨天晚上我喝了太多酒－－我要喝水，我除了不会呼吸以外，还很累，没有人，没有朋友，不知道我正在要做什么！请帮我，请帮我，请帮我－－！

 

啊，那是谁？打打打我的宿舍门，他想什么？ ‘ 等等 ’，我说，‘ 等一下 ’。我开门的时候: 哎呀，开始我觉得我不会帮他。 啊，为什么我这么累，为什么我是一个这么不能做东西的人？

 

后来，我觉得他很很糕，高，搞，我不知道我要用什么‘高’。没意思，我忘了。我看一看，想一想，我看到他有黑色的头发。。。

 

哦! 他的眼睛啊－！我刚才看他的眼睛。那们两个非常漂亮，颜色好像海水的颜色。可是、中便有好多影，影，影，好多影在那边。。。这个人太不高心！

 

影。。。

 

影。。。山。。。？

 

影山？！

 

我知道这个人是谁的时候、我就不舒服。我要做什么? 我要说什么? 什么好、什么不好?

 

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

 

我。。。

 

我不知道。。。

 

\-------

 

_Translation of above Chinese passage:_

 

I don’t know what I’m saying, because last night I drank too much alcohol- I need water, not only am I unable to breathe I’m also so tired, and have no one, no friends, and have no clue as to what I should say right now! Please help me, please help me, please help me-!

Ah, who is that? Banging and banging and banging on my apartment’s door, what does he want? ‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Wait a bit.’ When I open the door: oh, at first I thought that I couldn’t help him. Ah, why am I so tired, why am I a person who can’t do anything?

Later, I think to myself that he’s takl, toll, tall, I don’t know which ‘tall’ to use. It’s meaningless, I forget. [this is a pun with three characters all pronounced ‘gao’ but only one of them is the right character]. I look for a bit, think for a bit, I looked at his black hair…

Oh! His eyes- I just caught a glimpse of his eyes, those two are so, so pretty, thier color being so alike to the color of the sea. But, the middle has shadow, shadow, shadow, lots of shadow over in there… this man is too unhappy!

Shadow (Ying3/ Kage)…

Shadow (Ying3/ Kage)... Mountain (Shan1/ yama)?

Kageyama?!

Now that I’ve identified the man, I feel really uncomfortable. What do I need to do, what do I need to say? What’s good, and what’s bad?

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%÷%

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I…

I don’t know…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, you're probably wondering why I put Chinese characters up there in the chapter and had a translation for it.
> 
> This chapter was mostly a test given to myself to see how well I can extrapolate over a somewhat-random situation (one that would fit inside the story and setting of the pic of course. It was hard, considering the content of last chapter- how do I get out of that?!) Anyway I added in the Chinese because I wanted to have some form of 'gibberish' coming from Hinata. (obviously, it isn't gibberish, I took time to make sure all the sentences are at least 90% correct.) I also had to provide a translation because that's when Hinata realizes that he is letting someone into his apartment. His assumption of his identity might be correct or incorrect, I will tell you next chapter.
> 
> FYI, if you could translate that with little or no errors, welcome to Honors Level 2 Mandarin in my school! (sorry to the people who read traditional characters, I can't do those).
> 
> That aside, I think I survived the Math midterm.
> 
> My entire class was talking about how they screwed up the last part. At least the other parts were easy though. I'm screwed though, I feel like i forgot some random, tiny ass mf subtraction sign somewhere that would have made the whole equation so much easier. Eh... I will see what happens when I get it back...
> 
> Please tell me if my portraying of being drunk was good- I've never drank or gotten high in my life, so idk if it's 'right.'


	20. Month I, Scene XVIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata has to deal with a hangover, and ends up discovering quite a few things about Kageyama. Kageyama also finds out exactly what he doesn't want to know, what breaks his heart above all else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, so at this point it kind of becomes apparent to Kageyama that Hinata isn't going to tell Kageyama what's really happening. Of course, Kageyama says nothing on the outside but his thoughts are swirling.

"How are you?”

I jolt at the all-too-familiar voice in my ear, my mind too foggy to make out a whole lot. However, what I know for certain is that my throat is parched, my head feels light, and as my head spins slowly I can tell that some sunlight spills, raw and unrefined, through the small square window to my right.

“You ok?”

He speaks in a calm, deep, and rich voice from behind me, his warmth pressing against my back, an arm holding me to him by my stomach and trapping me on some soft surface. “Do you remember anything from this morning or last night?”

“Why do I feel like this?” is what slips from my weak lips. “Where am I…?”

I try to get up, but the man restrains me with a firm hand. I slump back into the mass of taut muscles, blankets, pillows, and heat. “Why…”

“Stay like this, and I’ll explain everything,” he wraps his arm a little tighter around me. “Don’t panic, Hinata, I’m not going to hurt you,” his tone tells me that he’s not lying. I relax a little, but then fully when he says, “there’s a reason why I’m pinning you down like this.”

He sighs.

“First of all, today is Sunday… just so you know. Second, we’re in your apartment. Your mother and sister aren’t here. Third, I’m not entirely sure what happened, but it seems that sometime last night, you had gotten drunk. I’m not sure whether that was your own doing, or whether or not your mother wanted you to have a sip and you just happened to have a terrible head for alcohol. Anyway, I was calling you- I forgot why- but that time you were really drunk. We had a phone call, and eventually I decided that I would come here. That’s why I’m holding you- I don’t want you to run off somewhere and hurt yourself.”

I frown. “But how did you get in?”

“Well,” he thinks for a minute. “I told my mom what I thought was going on and she drove me over here. She asked me if I wanted to go in, but I think that she already knew the answer would be no. Anyway, I rang the doorbell, and your drunk self answered. You were whimpering about something called a ‘Lego’, and clutching your foot in pain.”

“Legos are like these tiny plastic bricks-”

“I figured, I stepped on a lot of them when I was trying to stop you from running all over the place and smashing everything and all that.”

“I’m sorry. They belong to Natsu, she sometimes leaves them lying around. She’s not here because she’s at some sleepover. Mom’s at an out-of-town business thing. I can’t remember whether it’s Kyoto or Tokyo.”

Kageyama rests his chin on my shoulder. The heat burns a little. “Probably Tokyo.”

“Yeah… anyway. Please go on.”

“You hadn’t put away all the alcohol, and started drinking the minute you let me close the door. Fortunately, I managed to put all the alcohol away before you fell asleep on me.”

“What else did I do?”

“That’s-” I can feel his face heat up even more against mine as he rests it on my shoulder. “Confidential.”

“You and your fancy words.”

“Well, you were kind of all over the place and it took you a while before you collapsed- I hauled you onto the couch and waited for you to fall asleep. I originally was going to get up and sleep somewhere else, but I guess I accidentally fell asleep as it was.”

“Tell me everything that you remember.”

“What if I don’t think you’d want to know?”

“Too bad. I do now.”

“Are you su-”

“Tell me already!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll spill,” he sighs. “I tied our wrists together to make sure you wouldn’t do anything stupid, I only undid it right before I fell asleep. You seemed plenty interested in pretending that you were a loaf of bread.”

“What the-”

“I don’t even know. Anyway, after you got over that, you took me by surprise.”

“Is this the part you don’t want me to know?”

“You might feel a little uncomfortable, but I’ll go ahead.”

I wait for him to take a breath.

“You told me that I’m gay. That somebody told you that I was gay. I don’t know who, you didn’t say. Then you said you were gay too, and you wanted to drown in me and fall asleep in the ocean that’s apparently deep inside my eyes. You pinned me against the wall and kissed me. It didn’t last very long,” he swallows. “Is this- you loving me- is it true?”

“No,” I say a little too quickly. “I’m not gay… not that I know of, anyway.”

An awkward, sandy and succulent silence oozes its way through time.

“Never had your first love?” He asks.

I blanch and sit up too quickly, then getting dizzy and collapsing back onto the man and into his steady arms. “T-there was this one girl in middle school, but who’s to say that I’m not bi?”

He falls silent. Then he helps me sit up, still beside me on the couch. “Are you afraid of homosexuals?”

“Not _of_ them, no, but my mother is. I wouldn’t want to be homosexual because that would be…” I trail off, trying to find the right word.

“Awkward?” he finishes. My eyes find the deep blue of Kageyama's eyes, and he nods curtly. “And what would you do if you were?”

I purse my lips and drop my gaze. “I don’t know. But I’ll get to that when and only if it happens to be so.”

He takes this in a little too slowly, so I interject and break the silence. “What about you, you have a crush, right?” I suddenly remember the conversation we had a while back. But then I have an epiphany. “Wait a minute…”

“What now?”

“This is _your_ first love, right?”

At this he blanches, his face a deep crimson. He looks away.

“Y-yeah…”

“Ooh! Do you want to go out with them?”

“Oi, don’t ask me this stuff,” he mumbles out, just loud enough for me to hear. He runs a hand through his bangs. “It’s _dangerous_.”

“Dangerous? Just a simple yes or no can’t hurt.”

“I’m not elaborating, _god_ Hinata you should know that,” he leans back, the back of his hand draped over his forehead. It’s only then that I notice eye bags and his weak stature. “I’m probably _never_ going to have someone who loves me back, so you can forget about that this instant.”

We make eye contact as I flop down onto his lap, still a little woozy from last night. “Please don’t just leave me here to think about all the other painful stuff. And no, I’m not spilling about it.”

“I know that you’re not gonna spill,” he says, eyes closed this time.

“Please, Kageyama?” as I speak, his eyes peel open under the shadow of his hands to stare at me.

“Fine,” he closes his eyes again. “I do. I really do. I want to go out with them, but I know they’re really busy with a bunch of stuff and I don’t think that having the burden of spending extra time with me would do them any good.”

“Oh. I take it that you can’t find a way to open up their schedule?”

“It would probably be very hard to. The only thing I can think of is to do chores for them when they’re off doing something and then hanging with them after, but they’d probably think that I’m crazy.”

“Oh, well… good luck with them, then.”

He says nothing at first but then, a tentative “Oi, dumbass…”

“Yeah?”

“If someone wanted to ask you out, how would you want them to do it?”

“Me?! But that’s stupid- I’ve never been in a relationship before, so I don’t know-”

He fidgets and says something so quiet I can’t hear it.

“What?”

He says it even quieter than before.

“Hey, speak louder,” I sit up.

He does say it a little louder, but I still can’t understand what he’s trying to say.

“Is something wrong?”

He shakes his head. “You idiot Hinata, you’re the only person I can trust with this.”

“Oh. _Oh!_ I’m sorry, I, ah, er, um, yeah,” blush rises to my cheeks until we’re both sitting there awkwardly, the fact that I’m in his personal space not helping at all. “Well, I… I guess it varies between each person, but-”

“They’re a little like you, so just tell me,” he shuts his eyes again. “Well, they were up until recently.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. It’s not too big of a difference though.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“Are they familiar with you?”

“Very.”

“Volleyball team?”

“Like I’d let you narrow it down in any sort of way.”

“Oh c’mon! It’s not like I’ll ruin anything!”

He rolls his eyes and blushes again. “Easier said than done, dumbass. I can only _imagine_ what you’ll do- no matter _if_ they’re on the volleyball team or not. Anyway, just tell me what you’d want them to do."

I think for a moment. “Well… I guess I can give you a list…”

“Anything is fine.”

“Ok. One, I’d want it to be in a place where no one else would be there. So their noise doesn’t cover you up. Makes it more serious.”

He nods.

“Two. Don’t touch them romantically, or stalk them from afar until you get a ‘yes’, or they’ll feel attacked.”

“Yeah.”

“Three. Even though you might want to, don’t cry on the spot if you get rejected.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll look like a wimp, a crybaby, or both.”

“Oh.”

I shift my body so that I’m facing towards him. He looks exhausted.

After a second he gets up. “I’ll get water.”

“No,” I say abruptly, and next thing I know I’ve pulled him back down next to me. “I’ll get it.”

His look is skeptical, and mine is pleading. For a second we sit there, Kageyama probably trying to figure out what’s going on. (Hint: I don’t know either.) It’s not long before he leans back and says, “suit yourself,” a dead giveaway that he’s exhausted beyond measure.

I return quickly, quietly sitting a few feet away from him and waiting for him to stir. When he doesn’t, I leave his water on the table beside me and lean back, sipping out of mine.

And then he coughs.

“Are you ok?” I ask, touching his shoulder. I’m shocked by the heat… now that I’m more awake, I can tell that it isn’t just natural body heat that’s radiating off of him.

He rolls over, then reaches across me to get the water. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not _nothing_ , Kageyama you hypocrite,” I reach over to touch his forehead, but he swats my arm away.

“Whatever, dumbass, it’s just a head cold,” he says into the glass. “Don’t mind me.”

“But you’re exhausted! Did I keep you up the whole night or something?”

“You know what, just drink the water and make sure the alcohol is out of your system,” Kageyama draws himself up. “Just because you’re not going to tell me anything about your situation doesn't mean I can’t take care of you.”

“But your head probably hurts like hell!”

“A head cold is _nothing_ compared to what you’ve been and are still going through. Just let me, ok? I told you I’m not trying to hurt you.”

That shuts me up as he trudges away. I only stare in silence as he peeks his head around the door frame. “Well?”

I cock my head. “Well what?” 

“How are your bruises and stuff?”

It takes me a second to respond. “It’s been only a week. Jeez, Kageyama, I’m ok.”

“Really?” He stares me down but doesn’t get a verbal response. After a second or two he harrumphs in a final way- then saunters off before I can call on after him.

I hear the hush of the faucet over in the kitchen. Some clattering that sounds like things are being moved around. Shaking my head, I drink some more water and then stare at my hands. “You know, I guess he’s always going to be my strange little fluffy bunny babysitter. I’m not sure what to make of it.”

_“I HEARD THAT, YOU DUMBASS!”_

  
Kageyama’s reaction makes me giggle a little, while my strange little fluffy bunny babysitter’s hoarse voice is immediately followed by a long string of coughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I used to think that making Kageyama or Hinata get sick with a cold or something would be some kind of last resort kind of thing, but I thought it would fit in well here. Well, I guess things change.


	21. Month I, Scene XIX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kageyama and Hinata meet that 'someone else' who could have answered the door last night when Hinata was drunk. starts at maybe 10-11:00, ends at like 7:30, so its a long stretch of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, this is a long scene. I don't really know how to end Month I, so... I guess it will just be a plot of time? just to get into month II? I mean, not ALL climaxes on exactly on the monthly mark. Let me know in the comments please!

He refused to go away. Or rather, he wanted to leave because he was sick, but when I flat-out refused he didn’t put up any effort to resist and kinda just fell asleep on the couch.

Hours dawdle by, and I give Kageyama some cold medicine, take his temperature, and him that he has a significant fever and really shouldn’t try doing anything, especially not anything rash.

I check to see how he’s doing every so often. At one point, he fell asleep from pure exhaustion and I woke him up when I accidently dropped some pots and pans. He coughed and glared at me, saying that I’m too clumsy for my own good, and then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Not wanting to catch his sickness, (though I suspect I might have already because I literally slept with him,) I’ve parked myself next from him on the other couch, the table between us, surrounded by my notes and photocopies of Yachi’s notes.

His chest rises and falls slowly with every breath he takes, and the only sound is that and pages being turned and shuffled around every so often.

I go through stuff about how to factor polynomials, struggling through pages of practice problems. I breeze through the English homework- it’s my favorite subject and Yachi’s notes really help. I get confused over science and Japanese literature, and am in the middle of scribbling stuff down on the sheets when the apartment door opens.

I look up to see Natsu and our mother by the door, but before she can shout my name like usual I put my finger to my lips and point at Kageyama.

She understands and I follow her to the door, where Mom pulls me into… a hug?

My hands tentatively go up and hug her back, but then I see who’s behind her.

The man she cheated on Dad with.

My heart skips a beat. Instantly, my lighthearted mood (which I didn’t even know I had) vanishes. For a second I can’t speak. “Hello… sir…?”

I don’t even know his name.

“Good afternoon… I take it you’re Hinata-san’s son?” he extends a hand, and I hesitantly take it.

“I told you, you can drop the ‘-san’ already!” my mother teases. I don’t think I’ve mentioned before, but Mom is only really mean when she’s drunk. Other than that she’s a relatively sunny woman… discounting traffic and sudden budget cuts.

“Yes… I’m her son,” it’s weird, saying those words, confirming this connection I have with this woman. “And you are…?”

“Her boyfriend,” he smiles warmly, no trace of malice hidden anywhere in those eyes. Maybe anyone else would feel at ease with those bright, sky blue eyes and perfect black hair, so black that it’s almost purple. Despite his sweatshirt, he has a faint superman-like cleanliness, and a more obvious relaxed nature, but altogether it only puts me off. “I’m Kikutake.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say politely. In reality, this is definitely _not_ a nice meeting. Instead of speaking my true thoughts, I turn around and lead us further into the apartment.

“Sorry for the intrusion,” he says as he tags along.

“I guess you can call me Shouyou, because having two Hinata’s might be confusing. And just so you know, my friend over there is sleeping, so just hold your voices-”

“Never mind that, I’m up, dumbass,” Kageyama sits up and rubs his eyes, Natsu standing sheepishly by his side. She’s always had this kind of thing for him, I don’t know what it means though. It doesn’t seem romantic, more like just the fact that Kageyama is close to me and that makes her close to him. “Oh hi, Natsu… Hinata-san… and… um, who…?”

“Kikutake,” his full, advertisement-like voice rings through the air as the man grins again and shakes Kageyama’s hand- all before the latter can even mention that he’s sick, which he does immediately after giving his own name.

The five of us stand there awkwardly, and I exchange glances with Kageyama.

_You’re lucky I thought to clean up after you! Was this your first time drunk? Did your mother know, and if she didn't how would you explain this?_

_Thanks, Kageyama, I owe you one._

_What_ you _owe_ me _is information._

_Bah! Like I’d say anything. Anyway, you look terrible._

_Forget that. Who’s_ that _guy? Why are you so tense all of a sudden?_

“I’m going to take Kageyama to lie down somewhere else, okay? Maybe in my room or something,” I throw a look at him and he nods once, and then he sneezes loudly. I’m not sure if it was a legitimate sneeze or if it was for effect.

“Ebscuze me,” he looks away and hastens to get a tissue from the kitchen.

Natsu goes to play in her room for a bit as Mom and that Kikutani guy sit down at the table to have small talk. I’m not sure if I should be happy that it’s not very flirtatious, and that it’s mostly stuff about work. Apparently they work in different departments on different floors of the same building.

I grab the futon out of the closet and bring it into my room for Kageyama to sleep in (he’s too tall for my bed, that bastard), and he’s moved in before I finish relocating all my notebooks and papers and other stuff. I dig out some cold medicine from the cabinets in the bathroom, and set a tissue box down beside him. I bring over my mini trash can, so he doesn’t have to move all that much in order to throw tissues awa-

“Hinata,” he croaks, coughs, and then says my name again as I kneel beside him.

“Kageyama, you’ve gotten worse,” this time, he lets me lay a hand over his forehead. It doesn’t scorch, but it definitely isn’t a healthy level of heat. “I’m going to take your temperature. I’ll be right back, I left the thermometer in the bathroom.”

I turn the lights off and slowly open the door, slipping out to quickly slide into the room across the hall-

“Your son doesn’t look too good,” Kikutake-san says. There’s the sound of fingernails tapping agitatedly on the table, and suddenly I’m grateful that I don’t have to go more than across the hallway to get into the bathroom and back to my room.

But I stay still. What’s he going to say about me? What’s Mom going to say about me? They haven’t noticed me yet, even though I'm in plain sight.

My mother stays silent for a second, and I guess she’s debating on how to handle the the statement- that’s right, it was a _statement_ , not a _question ._

“I will tell you only what you need to know, and nothing more,” she says carefully. Memories flash through my mind. What have I told her? I don’t think I told her that she was one of the causes of my pains, but did I tell her-?

“Just what I need to know,” he agrees.

“You need to be gentle with him. He’s lost a lot of self esteem over the past six months- you know,” there’s an awkward pause. “The divorce. He still loves his father, Kikutake-kun, and sorely misses him. You can’t change that, and you need to be sure not to rub it in.”

“I got it. But I meant physically. What’s with all those bandages on his hands?”

The clicking stops.

My mother responds quietly, and I strain to hear, pressing myself against the wall. “He’s being bullied at school. Kageyama doesn’t seem to know, and neither does Natsu- they believe that those are from something else. Don’t mention it ever again, especially not to his face.”

“But if he’s being bullied, he should get help.”

“He doesn’t want me to. I’ve asked him again and again, and I’ve pleaded that he just let up- but his old stubbornness is coming back. I can’t do anything about it.”

“Then do it against his will.”

“How am I supposed to catch bullies if I don’t know what they look like? Just forget about it. If he wants help, he’ll ask for it,” the tapping comes back the second my mother finishes speaking.

What she says is partially true, but I guess that it’s more that I’m afraid of what will happen lest I say anything.

“But the boy-”

“My _son_ is going to have to suffer until he asks for help. Do not make me warn you again.”

I don’t want to hear anymore. No. This is not the lack of support I need, right now, in this moment. I don't want to believe that my mother is so... so... I can't even find the word but she's just so...

_I need to escape this,_ I think to myself. I retreat to my room, empty-handed, the thing I wanted to get all but forgotten.

_Will this Kikutakai guy do something to me?_

I rush to close the door as quietly as possible, turning around quickly and leaning on the wood.

“Oi, what took you so-” Kageyama stops mid-sentence, seeing me in whatever weak position I am in now. An awkward silence hangs on the air for a moment. I shrink away when he leans over to touch me, sliding to the ground with my hands hiding my face.

He swiftly comes over and lays his hand on my shoulder. “Okay, what happened?”

I shake my head. I should get help, I know, but I can’t because I know what usually happens when you interfere with bullies. They get caught, they get mad, and the damage gets worse.

Dad thought the same thing

“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I’m sorry.”

I can’t even look at him. All I see is blackness as I hide in the dark. And I want to go back, so badly, it feels like my heart is going to explode. I wish I knew what to do. I wish I knew what to do about the Blond guy and the Ring-bearing guy, I wish I knew where to turn- or what I'm even looking for in the first place.

I wish that this isn’t how I have to interact with Kageyama.

_The glass cage separating Kageyama and I is more opaque than ever. Kageyama stands outside, weighing his sledgehammer and his options- should he swing and risk hitting me? Or should he leave me alone and let me slowly rot away?_

Back here, in the real world, he cradles me in his arms, putting his weight on the wall and murmuring words to me, faraway words that I hear but don’t make meaning in my head.

Mom and I only had that conversation three times, but I am indeed my mother’s son. Both of us are people who are stubborn, willing to cling onto the past if needed.

_And Kageyama is not going to be able to help with this. I’m all alone, here in the glass and here in my room._

“We’ve been through this before, Hinata,” he says softly, and I’m not sure if that was something he wanted me to hear, so I don’t respond.

_Mom’s unwilling to help me._

He coughs into his sleeve. He holds me closer. “You don’t know how much you mean to me.”

I hold my knees tighter to my chest, fighting back the urge to wail.

_I’m unwilling to help my own self. Kageyama is the only one still clinging onto the hope that it will get better._

_And it_ won’t _get better. I know it won’t._

I yelp when Kageyama pushes at a particularly bad bruise on my neck. He quickly apologizes, and follows with, “I forgive you- just know that I will _always_ forgive you.”

And that’s when I dissolve into silent tears. Again. For the billionth time.

Kageyama laces his fingers through mine, and it’s no later than a second before my knuckles have turned white against his.

“I want this to stop,” I whisper between shaky breaths. “I don’t want to do this anymore.” I sniffle and try to wipe the tears from my eyes onto to find more spilling out from behind them. "I wish there was a way out of this mess."

Kageyama wipes the tears away with a tissue, and then blows his nose in another. “Do you still believe that I can't help you?”

My next words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them. “You’re the only reason why I’m still _alive_.”

Kageyama takes his hand away, and then brings me up close to his side. “Then, all you need is my existence?”

“I’m sorry,” I shake my head. “I’m sorry I have to stay silent like this, but yes, so just…” I’m blinking rapidly, throat working furiously and failing to hold back my tears.

“I’m not going anywhere, I promise,” he dabs at the endless flow of saltwater on my face. “Dumbass, I’m going to stay with you until I see the old you back.”

“I’m sorr-”

“Don’t apologize,” he murmurs, and traces the line of my jaw. Probably checking for bruises. “Even if you hide, just make sure that you don’t lie to me.”

“Kageyama, thank you,” I sob, and he lets me hug him and sob into his chest. “I won’t lie, from here on out, I promise not to lie…”

He runs a hand through my hair and gently squeezes me to his collarbone. Quietly sitting together, with me weeping for what could be to come and Kageyama doing whatever it is that Kageyama’s do.

_Hey, Kageyama-kun, I see that you’ve laid your hammer down and pressing a hand on the glass- but gently, not forcefully so. You’re watching me, but it’s calmer now… I wonder if it’s okay stop cowering in fright?_

_I don’t think that I will let the glass break just yet, but what I can do is touch you through the glass._

_Yes, this will be good for now. Just this._

_Let me stay like this, and maybe one day one of us will break it._

_I don’t want to think about who it will be, but for now, I’d like to think that it won’t involve that hammer of yours. I’d like to think, even if it’s only for a little bit, that this glass will serve as a two-way protection for you from my truths and me from the sharp stinging of the stone outside the glass._

_You've asked what I need before, and I didn't have an answer. I didn't even have an idea... but now, this is really all I need._

_So let me stay like this, even if it’s not for very long._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kageyama don't you dare be a bitch about Hinata's pain.
> 
> The messing up of Kikutake's name was purposeful because I wanted to make it seem like Hinata didn't care.


	22. Month I, Scene XX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kikutake and Hinata's mother have left the apartment, and Hinata needs a way to exert his feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovely fans!
> 
> I am extremely happy that I have achieved 20 scenes already :)
> 
> Shoutouts and a million kudos to these wonderful people: 
> 
> Nyctophiliaa: for writing 'the confession book' and letting me co-write with them on 'Haikyuu Art Online', which I only started yesterday during the Grammys lol
> 
> TheRealKags: for writing 'Storms', which is a lot like Five Months but with a completely different take on Hinata's mother and what Hinata is willing to tell Kags, and also for leaving a TON of really nice comments that pick up my mood every time I see them
> 
> Kryste_Harte and Akai_Tsubaki: for commenting on many of my chapters and telling me how much I'm pulling on everyone's heartstrings, and giving good feedback in general

Relief floods my body, letting me unclench my fists and relax my shoulders. Finally, finally, finally, and I can let my knees give way for me to sink to the ground like an ice sculpture left out in the sun.

Out of nowhere, I start to give dry sobs, having no tears willing to spill from my system yet. Drying out my throat, making me close my eyes, drawing my hands close to my chest, feeling and yet not feeling the hard wood against my knees.

_ I HATE him. I HATE him. I hate him so much, and I’m so glad that he’s just  _ gone,  _ and that I can let go now. _

Kageyama catches me before I smack my face on the floor of my apartment’s threshold, holding me up by my armpits, slowly letting my weight carry me down onto the ground. I suppose that he can’t do much else because the sickness is weakening him. 

It’s not long before I hear footsteps approach me, and I know it’s Natsu before she says anything.

_ In two years, she’ll be in middle school. I wonder how she’ll fare with Mom when I’m off in college. _

Over the past month, she’s used to me suddenly breaking down into nonsensical fits like this, so she just kneels down beside me and lets me take her hand.

_ These two, sitting here beside me, are the only two people who believe in me.  _

_ How can I bear to even look at them when I can’t even promise myself that everything will be perfectly fine? How could I have possibly smiled and laughed with Kageyama earlier, when I’m so insecure, still slipping down that highway when Kuroo was injured, and Lev… Lev passed right before my eyes, with Kenma only left to sob in the front seat not being able to see his friends, with only my words for support not knowing that he would die in only a matter of hours, how could I, how could I-? _

_ How could I not have foreseen Kikutake’s arrival, how could I have missed this critical detail, how could I have let this thought escape me? _

I reach to my head, rolling over in some direction and onto my side, tearing at my hair and trying to pull it out, ugly cries escaping my mouth as someone’s hands rest on my shoulder as real tears starting to fall sideways down my face, pooling onto the floor after dripping down the bridge of my nose.

_ How could I have let Dad, with his ginger hair and his amazing smile, find out about Kikutake? How could I have let this escape me, what would happen if he didn’t know? How different would things be now, would he still answer my texts, would he still return my calls at times other than midnight and during the ten-minute breaks he has during my school hours? _

_ And then there’s Kageyama himself. And Kimura. And Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, Tsujimura, Hoshino, Utaemon, Hishikawa, Fukao, and all the rest. I shouldn’t have left them, I miss them a lot when I’m not thinking about other things. I want to hear the sounds of the gym again, I want to face all the other powerhouse schools just like before, I wish my past wasn’t ripped from me like this. _

_ I broke myself, and they probably don’t care. _

_ How could I have let this be done to me? To Natsu, to Mom, to Dad, to Kageyama, to Kuroo, to Kenma, to Lev, to other people whoever they are, to myself? _

_ How? _

I let out a desperate breath.

_ I’ve lost. I lost the minute this whole thing started. I know that these two people are the only people I can trust, and yet I can’t tell them anything. Kageyama will take after Kikutake, but will overreact and throw a fit of rage. _

_ I’ve lost. I’m gone. There is nothing, absolutely  _ nothing _ , I can do.  _

_ I can’t stop this. There’s no point in even trying anymore, is there? _

_ I am alone, all alone, just like that time on the mountain, in the rainstorm, waiting for that stupid ambulance to just hurry  _ up _ and save my friends, to save Kenma and Kuroo… _

_ Waiting and praying in vain, only to find that everything in my life would all be gone, gone, gone forever with no chance of ever coming back. It would all just vanish into thin air, and I would have no air left in my lungs to even stand up. _

_ No, no,  _ no _. _

_ I can’t do this. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. _

_ I'm sorry, everyone. _

_ I’m sorry. _

_ It’s all my fault.  _

_ All of it. _

_ Let me go. Please, I’m begging you, whatever gods are out there, I beg you to stop this wretchedness in my heart.  _

_ I beg for you to stop this weakness, stop all of this, make me able to survive this somehow. _

_ Please stop this. _

_ Let me fade away. _

_ Let me close the doors to my heart, let me close the doors to my mind. _

_ This isn’t a  _ game _. This isn’t something that I can  _ control _. This isn’t something that anything I do will make this better, because in the end it will always,  _ always _ turn back on me. My moves will always result in my demise.  _

_ My  _ love _ , my  _ heart _ , my  _ soul _ \- none will ever obey me, none will ever let me go from their restraints. They will always drag me down, betray me, and throw me away once I’ve become a shell.  _

_ I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to run away. But I can’t even do that, I can only stay here in this trap. _

_ This is a trap. _

I let go of my hair and claw at my sides, trying to hug myself and bring myself down at the same time. My fingers dig into a scab from when Mom cut me with a broken beer bottle last week and I can feel warm, sticky blood seep out. I hit a bruise that makes me sigh. It hurts, so badly, but at the same time it feels just so, so good.

I feel relieved by it.  _ This pain, this pain, can this even be counted as pain? _

“Hinata-!” Kageyama’s voice rises when he notices the blood. He grabs my hands with one of his before I can pick off any other scabs. “Oi, dumbass! Don’t do this! Don’t hurt yourself!”

_ But why? If it feels good, so why shouldn’t I…? _

“How on  _ earth _ is this supposed to feel  _ good _ ?!” he shouts and plasters his other hand over my cuts. “Oi!”

“Did I say that out loud?” I murmur, unable to find his ocean blue eyes through the blur of teardrops leaking from my eyes. Rolling over and facing the ceiling, I tilt my head up and arch my back, now beholding an upside-down world. “Just leave me al-”

“I’m  _ not _ leaving! I refuse to let you go! Not when you can do… this!” He presses a hand on my left rib cage, trying to stop the bleeding. “Listen to me, Hinata…” He coughs. “Please…”

_ I’m sorry you have to support me like this. _

Natsu says something to Kageyama, who draws me, a lifeless doll, up to his chest. He literally rocks me back and forth like a baby, and I don’t have the strength to shove him away, and just keep weeping in his arms, the salty water dripping into Kageyama’s shirt.

“Not yet,” he says to me, whatever that’s supposed to mean. “Not yet.”

“But I-” I choke on my tears as my chest heaves. “I-”

Kageyama completely encircles me with his arms now, one hand reaching around to my shoulder. “Don’t think about that now, okay? Just be here. Look at me. Look at me in the eyes.”

I just bury my head in his shoulder, unable to stop myself from shaking. I don’t want to break this glass box. I’m afraid that if I see him, everything will come spilling out and I won’t be able to stop this.

Hands trace their way up my back, and the closeness makes me want to cry all over again.

_ I don’t deserve this from you. I don’t. It’s my fault, and I have to carry this weight alone. _

Kageyama guides my head away from his chest, using two of his long fingers to gently divert my gaze from his neck to his face. I still don’t look at his eyes, covering my own with bloody hands.

“Hinata,” he says. “Look at me. No questions, remember? You don’t have to tell me anything. Okay?”

I keep sobbing.  _ Why am I like this? Why can’t I stop? What’s driving me to be this way, what’s making me so weak?  _ Shaking my head, I lean back into his chest. I can still feel blood dripping down my side. 

“God only knows what I’d be without you,” he murmurs, his voice resounding in my ear. “So please, just look up. If you’re not doing it for yourself, do it for me.” 

Finally my eyes go up to his, and I immediately duck down again. “I can’t,” I whimper. “This is all my fault. I have to do this-”

“Not alone. Never, I won’t allow that,” he shakes me a little. “Not alone.”

“But-”

“Not buts, Hinata. Just look at me,” he holds me by the shoulders, stroking me. “Look at me.”

Our eyes meet again, and I try in vain to wipe tears from mine. 

“Do you see me?”

I nod. “I do.”

“Good. Now I want you to breathe. Remember how you calmed down before matches,” Kageyama runs a hand through my hair, tracing down my back. “Deep breaths, alright?”

I try to catch what little breath I can, but my lungs won’t let me. 

He lays a hand over my chest, pushing on the place right where my heart is. “It hurts here, right? Right here.”

I nod furiously, my gaze drooping.

“Hey, stay with me now,” he pats me on the neck, bringing my vision back up to his. “Stay with me.”

After a long second, he brings me back into his arms just like before, with my cheek against his collarbone. “Just like this is fine. Don’t hurt yourself, okay? It hurts me to see you like this.”

“Does it?” I ask into his shirt, confident that he didn’t hear me.

But he surprises me when he hugs me tighter. “Of course it does.” 

Hesitantly I wrap my arms around his torso, expecting him to complain. But when he doesn’t, I full-on squeeze him to my own chest.

_ Thank you for holding me up like this. You don’t know where I’d be without you. _

“Breathe,” is the last thing he says, and for a while we just sit together, me closing my eyes and leaning against his chest, and his chin on my shoulder and his arms around me. We don’t move from our place on the floor, and for what seems like forever time lays still.

_ The glass is not broken. _

_ The glass has not been broken yet. _

_ So let me stay like this, and let me hide from you behind its solid surface. _

_ Solid but fragile. _

_ Just like me. _

_ Does that make me a glass sculpture too, I wonder? _

As if to respond to my thoughts, Kageyama hugs me even closer, if that’s even possible. I can’t imagine what his face looks like right now, but I’d like to think that it’s calm for once.

_ Ah, I really don’t know what I’d do without you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what to put here... so... 
> 
> who's your favorite Haikyuu!! character? I can't decide, but I know that I really like Tendo and Tsukishima because Tsuki pisses Tendo off :P


	23. Month I, Scene XXI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata has calmed himself down, and he and Kageyama talk about what life will be like after high school.
> 
> This was so cute omg.
> 
> THIS IS THE FINAL SCENE IN MONTH ONE, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING IT MEANS A LOT TO ME

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually finished this on Valentines' day, but am only going to publish this now because I know a lot of Valentine's day challenges and works are going up. Those works are probably short, cute, and without angst like this fanfic, and that's probably the type of fan fiction people are in the mood for on such a day. Therefore, I withheld the chapter and waited until today to publish.
> 
> Shoutout to Its_Richard (aka three_days_nalu) for helping me edit this final scene! She REALLY helped me make it beautiful and clear. I'm not sure if you can tell the difference or not, but I think it becomes much clearer with her critiquing.

Apparently I fell asleep at some point, because when I wake up Kageyama is closing the door to my room, and I’m in my bed. Moonlight filters in through the single window. Groggily I sit up, feeling a bandage on my side. There’s only one person who could have put it there.

“Kageyama?”

At the sound of his name, he turns around to face me. He sits down on the side of my bed, the mattress sinking under his weight.

“You’re better than earlier?”

“Yeah.”

“Natsu told me that it happens a lot.”

“She’s not wrong.”

Kageyama looks at me with a thoughtful gaze, and I don’t take my eyes off his. What used to be a glassy dark blue has completely transformed- now his eyes are a clouded, midnight blue. For once his thoughts aren’t obvious, and all I can tell is what I said before… that he’s thinking, and thinking pretty hard.

Neither of us say anything for a few more seconds, but then we both start speaking at once.

“Did you-”

“Do you-”

We pause, and Kageyama lets me speak. “Did you put the bandages on me?”

He seems to want to take it a little bit slow, maybe because he’s sick, and doesn’t answer right away. But after a split second, he says, “I did. Fortunately the bleeding wasn’t too bad when I removed the staples. I mean… no offense… but I could tell you lost some of your muscle. Well, I mean, that’s kind of to be expected from… um… lack of training and all that…”

“I’m a dumbass,” I throw the words out unthinkingly.

“N-no, well, I mean, you’re busy right? Studying and whatever else you can possibly… do…  without volleyball- no that’s not right-”

_Bless how awkward this guy can be sometimes._

“- any-anyway, your injuries are pretty bad. Like, are you sure that you can keep up whatever you’re doing?” His gaze drifts down to where my stomach is under the covers, and my hand instinctively goes to it.

 _Does he want to see them again? Maybe not, but_ I _certainly do. I mean, I have looked at myself before, but I want to see what Kageyama has done._ Sitting up I pull off the shirt, which Kageyama also changed, and lie back down, staring at the injuries. My stiff muscles and some other stuff makes me internally groan with the strain. If he hadn’t seen it already, I wouldn’t have shown him this, but since he already has I figure ‘why not’, and I guess it’s too late to turn back now.

“I mean, my thoughts aren’t coming from _nowhere_. There were pieces of broken glass over here, Hinata,” he runs his fingers over my lower left rib cage. “The few bandages and other things you had on were really old, and I know that you’ve always been a little careless when it comes to your body. But honestly, I would’ve thought that you got better over time…” he reaches over and re-wraps something on my right hip. “You know I’m worried.”

“I already told you why I’m not going to tell you anything about those,” I put my hand over his, laying back into the pillows and staring at the ceiling. His hand tightens around mine, and silence settles for a long moment. “How is Natsu?”

“Sleeping.”

“What about Mom?”

“She hasn't come back yet.”

“Kikutake isn’t here then?”

“Nope. Who is he anyway? When I woke up earlier I heard you being introduced to him, but you were really tense after that, and I thought that it probably isn’t your mother.”

_I never thought I’d be thinking this, but thank god he doesn’t suspect the culprit._

“Kikutake is the man my mother cheated on my father with,” I close my eyes and shift slightly to the side to give Kageyama more room. “I didn’t bother to learn his name because he never came back. Not until now, anyway.”

“How did you find out that she was cheating before your dad did?” He lays down beside me, also on his back and staring at the ceiling- his feet hanging off the edge of the bed. “I mean, _they’re_ the couple- or _were_ the couple.”

_How do I say this… just flat out?_

“I… uh… I kinda walked in on them… Kikutake and my mom… doing _it_.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I was coming home early from practice once, and I came into the apartment and I… heard sounds… from my mom’s room…” my cheeks flush and I trail off, unable to finish the sentence.

“Oh god…” even though I can’t see his face I can tell that he’s blushing, now understanding what I meant. “That must have been rough. For all of you, I mean, but particularly you.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

Awkward moment. Veeeerrrry awkward. _Why do the seconds have to drag by so  s l o w l y? When will the blush fade away from my face? Is Kageyama still blushing what’s he thinking, is he thinking about sex?_

“Hey, I don’t suppose you would know, but do you think that they’re together? Like, as a romantic couple together?”

“My mom and Kikutake? … I mean if they’ve done _it_ , I don’t see why not. When I went to get the thermometer earlier, the first time I cried tonight, I overheard them mention that they worked in the same building, just on different floors. They would be able to see each other really often."

What little light filters through the window paints my entire room blue, and turns Kageyama’s skin into a dainty, fairy-like white. The stars twinkle and wink as I stare at them, watching us from afar, and I can only speculate as for what they think. I wonder, have they seen something like this before?

“Hinata.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever hurt yourself like that before? Making yourself bleed like that?”

“No. It’s just been crying. Hopeless gasping for air.”

“I see.”

Our minds drift like icebergs on the sea for what seems like a billion years, silent, cold, and unfeeling, thoughts sliding on and off like penguins. The future seems bleak, just like the antarctic sun barely visible over the distant horizon- oh, woe to the ones who ever set sail to meet that mythical ball of fire, for all they will find is an icy, glowing gem that could never be further from fire itself.

_Honestly, this is the most worried Kageyama has been about me in his life. I wonder if anything has come over him…_

“Kageyama?” I blurt out suddenly, almost expecting him not to answer.

But he does. “Yeah?”

“We’re graduating in a few months.”

There’s no movement from beside me except my hand coming to be held again. “We are. Exactly four months now.”

“What do you suppose you’ll do when you retire from Japan’s National Team?” the sheets rustle as I turn to look at him. He still stares at the ceiling, and even though it’s a cold and almost lifeless look his hands remain warm.

He stops for a while to take my question in. “I’ll probably come back here. I don’t have many relatives, so it’s not like I have anywhere else to go. I mean, I’ve been in this neighborhood my whole life, and I don’t really like the thought of living anywhere else.”

“That’s interesting. I thought you had lots of relatives, because your mom’s told me a bunch of stories about the four or five brothers and sisters she has.”

He sighs and closes his eyes. “Over the past decade, particularly in the last five years, a few of them died of or have been diagnosed with liver cancer. I guess it’s a genetic thing, added to the fact that they are all at least ten years older than my mother (who had me rather late in her life, so all my uncles are basically obnoxious grandpas and all my aunts are basically prissy grandmas) and aren’t necessarily the healthiest people.”

_I know cancer is bad, but how long-_

“If you didn’t know, people usually only live up to five years when they have liver cancer because it’s typically diagnosed late. Many of my family members don’t have much time left if they haven’t passed on yet.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s ok,” he murmurs. He looks out the window, and I trace his gaze to the stars again. “Come to think of it, that’s probably how I’m going to die too. It’s a little strange, thinking that far into the future, but when I’m an old geezer it’ll seem like the blink of the eye.”

I let out a giggle, at which Kageyama jerks up and blushingly exclaims, “what?”

“I never thought that you would become so insightful. I mean, all you ever used to talk about was volleyball, volleyball, volleyball, but now that your entire _life_ is set on it you can’t help but think about other stuff.”

He lays back down, our shoulders touching. “I guess. I mean, my old man suddenly picked himself up and started talking about how I should be looking for a lady to settle down with later in life, and even though it’s frightening and pisses me off it’s kinda got me thinking. Well, I don’t know, but one way or another these thoughts just piled up in my head.”

“Why is it frightening?”

“I don’t want to think about getting married yet. I mean, I have _you_ ,” after inspecting the ceiling like it’s the most interesting thing in the world, he speaks again. “Like, you saw how long it took me to pull my head out of my ass and make legitimate friends with people. You are _still_ my best friend. Love, as in romantic love, isn’t something I’m terribly experienced with and just thinking about myself with some other person, even if I’m only living with them rather than doing lovey dovey stuff, makes me want to cringe.”

For some reason, a pit forms in my stomach when I think about Kageyama marrying some other random lady. “Do you think it will be an arranged marriage or not?”

“At this point?” Kageyama takes a second to mull it over, exhaling and blowing a loose strand of hair from his eyes. “I have no fucking clue. I mean, my mom is kinda traditional with the male/ female power complex, and will probably just approve or disapprove of whatever happens, and make changes as she sees fit. My dad might try to marry us into a rich family from the cities, or he could find someone local. I, for one, might forget about the person I like right now and fall in love with someone while I’m with the National Team, and get married of my own choice to them. Maybe one of my fans (because if you’re on the national team you’ll undoubtedly have some) will fall in love with me and then my dad will make me start dating her, and then have me propose provided that she doesn’t dump me. Any path I take, there’s also always the chance that I might never forget about who I like right now, and it will hurt me for as long as I live- waiting to die of liver cancer.”

“Well that’s dark.”

“No kidding.”

Another silence settles in, less awkward this time. More settled.

“How about you, Hinata? You’re taking a gap year, right? Then you’re going to college?”

“Yeah, Natsu isn’t really mature enough to be with Mom by herself. I don’t even let her be near Mom because I don’t want her trying the alcohol,” _and because she’s too weak to withstand the abuse and all the things that Mom throws._ “She’ll be in her first year of middle school when I go to college, so I want to make sure she’s as prepared as possible. At the rate Mom’s going, it’ll be hard to keep her steady. It’s already hard. Perhaps that’s what Kikutake is here for, just moral support maybe, but I really don’t know how Kikutake is going to influence my life yet.”

“How come you can’t wait longer? Until you go to university, so you have more time to spend with Natsu and all that?”

“It’s probably going to be hard to find a well-paying job to sustain us all if I don’t go to college. I mean, right now I kind of want to be an English teacher (because English is what I’m best at), and my best shot at that will require me to go to college.”

“Oh.”

_It’s sad, but it’s true. Volleyball, as a career, is completely out of the question. Now that my dad is up north, and says he doesn’t have enough to send more than bits of money at the holidays, I have to be able to find some kind of work. There’s also the question of my mother becoming debilitated by her desire for alcohol, and if that does happen we still need to get money somehow. Hopefully Natsu will be old enough to work by then._

“Naaa~ Kageyama.”

“Mm?”

“Do you think it’s weird that we’re only talking about this now?”

“Maybe for other people. But we’re volleyball idiots, and it’s not like we would have thought about this until now anyway, so I don’t really think it matters,” he brushes his bangs out of his eyes with his free hand.

There’s a distant wail of an ambulance a few blocks away, which comes and has gone silent before ten seconds have passed. In the corner of my eye, a cat crosses the street under a flickering street lamp.

“Oi, Hinata.”

“What?”

“Do you remember first practice last year?”

“When Ennoshita became captain? Oh, great. Don’t remind me of Tanaka and Nishinoya… I’m surprised that they went to uni rather than to an insane… what’s it called again? Assy? Azyla? Assy Llamma?”

He snorts. “Insane Asylum.”

“Yeah. That thing.”

“Anyway, do you remember what his first assignment was?”

“No, was it bad? Ennoshita was all over the place, so I can’t remember what the first one was.”

“In hindsight, it wasn't that bad, but at the time it seemed like the worst idea ever. I remember feeling like it was made to make fun of literally everyone on the team,” he smiles to himself and folds his arms, my hand still in his.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I’m _not_ smiling.”

“Really. Then what is this smirk I see?”

“Don’t touch my face! Dumbass! Anyway, you honestly don’t remember?”

“No,” I keep giggling as I settle back down, this time laying on my stomach.

“He had us hold hands with someone else on the team who was in the same class for a whole day. Except during PE.”

“That was the first one?”

“Yup.”

“Was it annoying?”

“More annoying than I ever found you, and I could tell that you were almost never more pissed with me in your life. Practice was the worst, we had to sync up perfectly. Your height, my height, changing in the locker rooms- by the time it was over, we were practically conjoined twins. Every three practices we switched partners, until we were all pretty much the same person. Even my mom noticed a difference in my step sequence and motional patterns. Really, I’m surprised you don’t remember it.”

“There are a billion things that I _still_ don’t understand about you. How did you get from dying of liver cancer to _that_?” I can literally feel the warmth radiate from him like a furnace. I turn my head to face him, and I’m temporarily startled to find that he’s also looking at me.

“It came to mind because I’m holding your hand right now.”

“Really?”

“What, is that a _bad_ thing?”

“No, I just… I don’t know… I was wondering,” I watch him blink. His lashes are actually longer than I thought they were, and with a start I realize that this is the closest my face has ever been to his. “Just wondering.”

_I’ve always wondered how things come and go in that brain of his._

Suddenly he sits up. “I just remembered something.”

“What?” I follow him, watching as he stares at the two-year-old poster of Karasuno’s volleyball club, with me jumping and about to spike a ball. I actually forgot about the thing until now, because I’ve just been in and out of my room, without time to longingly gaze at these posters. I tear my gaze away and back to his silver-lined face.

“Tsukishima told me that there was going to be a meteor shower in two days. Do you want to watch it with me?” he turns to look at me. “Sugawara and Daichi are coming back from their universities for a little bit, they told me.”

“I… um… sure.”

“Great,” This time he actually, freely, legitimately smiles- and for the first time in a while, warmth spreads throughout my body seeping in through more than just the surface. It feels like tiny little bubbles are surging up inside me.

“Wednesday, my place, and don’t be late,” he squeezes my hand a bit, as if to remind me of the past.

“I won’t be late,” I smile back at him, and then we flop back down on my mattress, and before long (or before I can kick him out of my bed and back to the futon) drowsiness consumes the two of us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU AGAIN.
> 
> the next scene is still part of Month I, but it's more of like a 'review' chapter about what has happened in month I. 
> 
> ACCORDING TO GOOGLE DRIVE MONTH I IS 102 PAGES LONG!!!!!! I AM DECEASED.


	24. Month I, Exeunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically a narrative from Hinata summarazing what has happened so far in Month I. This isn't really a scene.
> 
> Exeunt is a stage direction that tells certain actors to leave the stage. (Think of exit). This is kinda because we started our Shakespeare Unit in my English class and I thought it was more interesting than making this chapter be called something like "month I, conclusion"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Person: where's Kagehina (ismyCauseofDeath)?
> 
> Me: *in corner* [sobbing in both joy and anguish]

_One month gone, four months left._

_Mom has not gotten better. Natsu hides in shadow. Dad is nowhere to be found. Every day, I still take care of Mom and tell her to stop drinking. I’ve been trying to limit the amount she buys and drinks, but I suspect that she drinks after work and before she goes to the gym, before she comes home at all._

_Kuroo is lonely. I can tell by his voice when he calls, but since we met we only exchanged words once when he called. Kenma and Lev are both still dead, with no chance of ever coming back. My former upperclassmen, on the other hand,_ _are_ _returning for what little time they can, but I haven’t seen them in a while and I’m not sure how this is going to go. Meanwhile, Kimura has taken me over, and the volleyball team doesn’t need me anymore. Since the day of the rainstorm, some of the people have told me that I don’t look like I’m happy and that they are there to support me if I need it. I offer thanks but do not respond to their wishes. They stay back._

_That aside, I am still being attacked by those two underclassmen, and I suspect that they dole out the most physical damage. They have come every other day or so, randomly jumping out at me at random times ranging from before school to early evening. Soon I am going to have to replenish the supplies in the first aid kit, and am going to have to buy more rubbing alcohol and stuff._

_My mom still believes that the bullies are the ones who do all the hitting and stuff. I wonder if I will ever be able to tell her that it is she, too, who is slowly tearing me down. Natsu may or may not know that I am being bullied, but she_ does _know about my mother. I wish to keep it this way, and do anything possible to keep this from spreading._

 _Holy crap._ Our _mother. The woman who was supposed to protect us, but has somehow switched the roles between us all. Now I have to protect both of them, Natsu and my mother, and I don't know where the hell this is going to go and what my destiny has in mind._

_I have not seen nor heard from Kikutake in the past day, since he left. However, I know that he will take my mother somewhere to go see the meteor shower- I just don’t know where. I will bring Natsu with me when I go see Kageyama and Daichi and Sugawara. I just pray that the upperclassmen don't ask me about the markings I've gotten._

_Many times, in fact no less than once every day, I think about what my life was like before I was suddenly displaced by these happenings. I think about the times when I was in middle school, and my first two years of high school. Stuff like_   _t_ _he King’s Toss. Ridicule from Tsukishima. Nishinoya and Tanaka being crazy, Nishinoya with his Rolling Thunder. Beating Shiratorizawa in freshman year and after that saying goodbye to Daichi, Sugawara, Asahi, and Kiyoko. Everyone else, them too..._

_Anyway._

_The King._

_Kageyama is my savior._

_He’s let me talk, and he’s also let me hide. Even though this glass cage is cramped and serves as a two way protection, he makes it seem like it’s not too bad. He’s let me cry, he’s let me smile in the briefest of moments, and he’s making sure that I’m not completely alone, not completely stuck like this._

_Now that I think about it, I wish he wasn't leaving for the National Team, because I’ll miss him. By then, yes, the glass will probably be broken and I’ll be fighting against stone, but I’d rather have him with me than not. Perhaps his sledgehammer will still be with him, perhaps not, and even if he still carries it the weight of it the strikes of the metal may not have any effect at all._

_There are so many things. Too many things, more than enough to make my heart hurt even more._

_But I’ll put that aside._

_Thank you, Kageyama._

_I wish good luck to us all, and that our woes will be lifted soon- whether they be of the solvable or the unsolvable._

_Have the stars seen a loss like this before? And if they have, will they ever be able to tell me what happened to the last one who suffered like this?_

_My third year of high school slowly slips away through my limp fingers, and there’s nothing I can do to slow or stop it._

_Four months until we graduate. Four months until my life will change forever._

_Only four months until Kageyama leaves me._

_Four months until my savior is gone..._

_And when that time comes, I can’t be weak._

_I absolutely_ cannot _be weak._

 

* * *

* * *

 

_**Five Months, Hinata Version, Month I** _

_**Exeunt** _

 

* * *

 

 

Twinkle, twinkle, Kageyama-kun,

How I wonder what you’ve done.

Up above the world so high

Like a black crow in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle, Kageyama-kun,

Victory is all but none.

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

_**Click here for[Kageyama's Version](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8698420/chapters/19943068)** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IMPORTANT SO PLEASE READ THIS
> 
> Hi guys,
> 
> I've decided to keep going with Five Months (contrary to the announcement I made in the comments last chapter). I will try to come across just as strongly if not more in the next Month, and will try to write more efficiently. Now that I have quite a few ideas up there in my head and up here in AO3, I will try to provide a more synthesized, more organized, and more clear cut arc of this story. 
> 
> Thank you all for waiting so very patiently for this, and reading this far. Shoutout to everyone who gave kudos, and everyone who gave comments, and everyone who also went over and read kageyama's version- you do not know just how much it means to me. Your comments have all been so sweet and I love them, especially the really long one from backspacecommotion in the comments last chapter! That really helped cheer me up. I think that I've mentioned this before, but I really love seeing that I've gotten things in my inbox because it tells me that people are actually taking the time to think about what I've written, and as the chapters go by they get more and mor valuable because they show that people have read more and more.
> 
> This is the first work I've put on the Archive and the second I've started, and is by far the one that I've put the most effort in. When I first put this up on the Archive, I was nervous because I didn't know whether people would like it or not. I was thinking 'what if my best work is not enough?' But after publishing some chapters, I was delighted to see that people left kudos and positive comments- I was RELIEVED to see that there weren't many people didn't like the work. One of the comments said that this fan fiction deserves more hits and stuff.
> 
> Recently I checked out my statistics on my dashboard, and right now Five Months, Hinata Version has 108 Kudos, 1681 hits, and 23 bookmarks. And I know, that's probably not a lot considering how much I've written, but I'm impressed because I thought it wouldn't make it past 500 hits or so after the first month. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING AND SUPPORTING ME.
> 
> I will not be publishing any more of Hinata's version until I am at least halfway done with Kageyama's version, so please check that out :)
> 
>  
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Kagehina_is_my_cause_of_death
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT AS OF AUGUST 13TH, 2017
> 
> Heya'll,
> 
> I'm really happy ya'll are saying good things down there in the comments and pointing out things I've missed. and dear me, almost 2,500 hits, thank you all so much! month two is going to be slow until I finish Kageyama's version of Month 1, but for that I only have a few more scenes, most of which will be published in the next month. Please check those out, Kageyama needs some hits way over there :)
> 
> KHMCOD

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Five Months, Month I, Kageyama Version](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8698420) by [Cautiously_Dauntless](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cautiously_Dauntless/pseuds/Cautiously_Dauntless)




End file.
